Minor party deals no great issue if voters are winners

LIKE most Townsville Bulletin readers, I have been following the articles on this election. It seems to the average person, that ‘preferences and deals’ are the debate at the moment. As an ordinary voter, I find this worrying.

We have so many things on our plate at the moment, I find this argument to be a bit insulting towards the voter.

Firstly, I am sure that little parties like Katter’s have to make deals with either major party to deliver anything to the people they represent.

We cannot expect to have it both ways, that is, a minor party making no deals and delivering nothing, or minor party making deals keeping the big parties on track to give us what we need.

If a minor party like Katter has to make a deal with the Labor Party to get something worthwhile, well, I cannot seriously see a problem with that. As long as the price is not too high. We do not want the Liberal party asking the Katter party to back a Chinese takeover of a port, and having Katter agree to it.

That kind of deal is way off.

The argument that no deals are allowed seems to be nothing for the voter in the end. If making these deals will deliver me a job, cheaper power, good pension and have tax money to make sure I will be cared for in times of illness, then so be it.

The people that are fighting and screaming about this in the paper, should wake up and realise the voters just want results and not this terrible arguing back and forth. So, how about thinking of us for once and let us get on with delivering for voters. considered decision as to how they intend to cast their vote prior to arriving at a polling booth.

Imagine the amount of paper and plastic that would be better purposed, if it were not used at 2:30am in some instances for parties to stake their claim to prime real estate.

It would likely bring populist politics down a peg as well. tilapia is in category 6 restricted matter, for which the only offence is to give food, except for lawfully baiting, trapping or shooting. The offences for distribution quoted by the TCC spokesman apply to category 3 restricted matter, which does not include tilapia.

I am a bush lawyer and welcome correction, but my understanding is that tilapia may be caught and eaten in Queensland. In the southern states of the US, tilapia is included in restaurant menus as Cajun Tilapia and in other recipes.

It is not the best fish in the sea, and the quality does not compete with the fish that spoil us in Queensland. But instead of bagging it as noxious, what about promoting a culture of catching the edible fish? This would be good sport for kids along the river and certainly would make some inroads into controlling the problem. themselves from Adani, yet the Queensland government has rolled out the red carpet for a mine that will soon become a stranded asset.

Adani continues to claim that this mine will produce billions of dollars in taxes and royalties. More rubbish. Adani has never paid any material corporate taxes in Australia. No surprise when you know that Adani’s Australian registered companies are owned in tax havens like the British Virgin Islands. And now, they will not be paying any royalties. Adani must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Adani’s track record, both in India and Australia, is rife with questionable and illegal activities. In 2017, Adani’s Abbot Point coal facility was fined more than $12,000 for polluting the waters of the Great Barrier Reef.

In February 2020, the mining giant was convicted and fined $20,000 after pleading guilty to providing false or misleading information to Queensland’s environmental regulator.

In August this year, Adani was ordered to pay four companies more than $100 million after a court found it had carried out “unconscionable conduct” as part of a contractual dispute centred around its Abbot Point terminal.

Adani is not a company you want to do business with.

One reader says that, sometimes for parties like Robbie Katter’s KAP, making deals with the major parties is the only way to fly. Picture: Cameron Laird

cent increase in cattle exports, a total of 388,296 hapless cattle since the Port’s last annual report.

While the Port and exporters claim to give the best possible care on board ships, grim photos from live export vets and live export independent observers showing cattle trampling in thick excrement, or caked in excrement, show even the travel is poor.

Ships get delayed by rough seas, causing fear and terror in the cattle, and over 11 per cent of trips to China have insufficient feed or water for the cattle. At their destination, Australian cattle are hacked at and manhandled in ways completely illegal in Australia.

Recent footage from Aceh showed Australian cattle killed in such cruel ways that even the Live Export Council’s CEO found it “distressing, unacceptable and not appropriate treatment of Australian livestock”.

Cattle unloaded in Vietnam face protracted deaths in both approved and unapproved slaughterhouses.

Pope John Paul II declared St Francis to be the patron saint of ecology. On his feast day let us reflect that we accept appalling treatment of cattle before being loaded on to live export ships (government regulations allow cattle to be denied water and food for 48 hours during road transport, even in the baking North Queensland sun), on the ships and at their destination.

Live export makes money for some, but is a stain on our conscience and our city.