YOUR VIEWS
I RESPECT Brisbane Broncos coach Anthony Seibold for his efforts this season to get his players into overdrive but sadly being stuck in third gear is hardly going to drive a team to a win.
We know Kevvie Walters would love to coach the Broncos and his appointment would certainly cancel the disappointment with the current coach.
A new personality is desperately required, one who has the ability to stir this group of talented players into remedial action.
Fans would come rushing back to support the club they’ve followed for decades. And I doubt if a new coach needs to be a miracle worker to get the boys over the line.
Surely the position of club CEO is also on the line for his lack of foresight in moving this club forward.
KEN JOHNSTON, ROCHEDALE SOUTH
AGAIN, we have people living in NSW worrying about the state of affairs in our great state of Queensland.
However, when people do this, they should get their facts correct.
The “unnecessary employees” that one of our worst premiers, Campbell Newman, removed when he came to office in his one term of government, was 4100 Queensland Health Department workers, one of the most essential of public services.
Newman sacked rail workers which led eventually to problems in transport services.
Ken Wade (August 26, GC Bulletin), if Newman was so good for Queensland as you say in your letter, why then did he, not only lose government after one term in power by the largest single turnaround in Australian political history, but lost his own seat to boot!
Just for the record, currently Ken, your NSW government employs 396,000 public sector workers. On a per capita basis and per state land area basis, Queensland has way, way fewer public sector employees.
JIM TAYLOR, MUDGEERABA
AS a retired Air Force Officer with “some training” in nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, it’s time to take a helicopter view of what’s happening in the world and pick it to pieces. We sure as Hell aren’t getting a full, concise or timely story from anyone, because it appears that either:
a. no one really knows and it’s all conjecture; or
b. someone knows and it’s a massive smokescreen for reasons that will only become clear at some point in the future.
One thing IS becoming clear though. SARS COV 2 is the wrong name. Severe, Acute, Respiratory, Syndrome. It’s no longer, if it ever was, just respiratory, is it? It’s babies to centenarians. It’s cytokine storms. It’s damage to blood vessels so severe that the body just collapses, unable to maintain itself.
It’s people, months on, unable to move, or function in any way. It’s disturbed thinking, foggy brains and chronic headaches.
Remember the early days, before this “creature” started mutating? Only old people. Only those with compromised immune systems. And now, genetic sequencing tells us this is a European strain, this is Asian, we haven’t seen this strain in New Zealand before. How did it get there? Still no answers!
So now, six months on, everyone is at risk of having, it seems, a
lifelong debilitating set of illnesses. Not just ravaged lung tissue but a list as long as your arm, and seemingly getting worse by the day.
And today, “evidence” of a Hong Kong man, infected twice by two different strains, four months apart. And reports of “only three months” of protective antibodies once you’ve had it and survived. What on Earth is this?
Bio warfare? To what end? Time will tell, as it always does. One thing’s for sure. I don’t want to catch it.
GORDON WALKER, FLIGHT LIEUTENANT RAAF RETIRED, GOLD COAST
AMAZING as it seems, our council has approved a 26-level tower on a 899sq m site, that happens also to be on a busy intersection, does not fit in with nature of the local area, and is completely out of kilter with the co called City Plan.
I refer to the majority approval for the Main Beach Monaco development proposal.
What is it that council does not understand about ‘protect and enhance’, rather seemingly preferring to follow a ‘develop and destruct’ mantra’?
Concrete canyons do little to attract visitors, or benefit residents, and yet increasingly it seems they are being approved, often at odds with the iconic nature of the different neighbourhoods that make up the diversity that complements the outstanding natural beauty of our Gold Coast City.
We have heard the term ‘concrete cancer’, now there seems to be a new one, ‘ Concrete Creep’, a malaise that is creeping out of Surfers both to the north and south.
A disgrace.
DON ESPEY, MAIN BEACH
I AM trying to come to terms with the COVID-19 deaths – currently around 550 – which has effectively stalled the Australian economy through people/business restrictions and border closures.
It will take years to restore the economy (taking in job and business losses) even if a vaccine is found. The deaths from flu in 2018 were 3102 despite having a vaccine.
Therefore we can assume COVID will be a cause of death in future years. We will have to live with it even if a vaccine is found.
Suggestion is that all government restrictions including border closures be lifted to normalise the economy. Everyone will have to organise and impose their own personal health restrictions.
Government then to get back to improving the economy through business incentives. Yes, there will be more COVID deaths (at an average age of 80-plus) but it will still be a relatively small cause of death based on previous yearly figures.
Media hype and fear mongering from both press and government sources has blown the Australian COVID epidemic out of all proportion. Great for awareness and the early response paved the way for a slowdown. However there is now a need for every individual and business structure to be responsible for their own health restrictions and get back to improving the economy.
With the death rate reducing (even in Victoria) it is time to take a stand to save the economy.
Every day we read of more business closures and job losses. Leave it for longer the business and job losses will further escalate and there may never be a recovery.
BRUCE THOMPSON, CLEAR ISLAND WATERS