WE DESERVE ANSWERS

AS our elected governments are apparently intent on implementing pre-Christmas border policies that will kill some of the people we love

for the economic wellbeing of others, are we not entitled to know the expected number of deaths, the exact extent of the economic benefit, and who will be the beneficiaries?

And the economic and human costs of the surgeries, treatments and ambulance arrivals expected to be delayed by the Covid surge, as well as the toll on our health workers? And be told exactly why tourism jobs — serving well-off people on holidays who wish to travel across all state borders for non-essential reasons — demand the deaths and suffering of others, while tens of thousands of tertiary education jobs, for example, have been quietly thrown on the scrap

heap nationally, in the midst of a shortage of skilled workers?

Will the industry advocates and individual beneficiaries of the border reopening policy show any humility, sense of responsibility or gratitude for the losses this policy will cause to others? And will we remember and honour our pandemic dead, build memorials, or help the bereaved, as we do when our fellow community members die in wars and bushfire disasters?

Peggy James

Howden