LetteroftheWeek
Have strong opinions? Write in an engaging way? You could win our Letter of the Week, and with it a book from our friends and sponsors, the publishers HarperCollins. This month’s book prize is You Were Made For This, a bold, sharp, gripping debut novel about a couple whose perfect life in the Swedish countryside is not what it seems. It’s a gripping page-turner that provocatively explores the darker side of marriage, motherhood and friendship.
IF there is to be an enquiry into power prices, the first item on the agenda should be the obscene amount of money poured out in subsidies for wind and solar – renewables.
This is one of the dark secrets of the energy debate, something that the zealots and the activists never wish to disclose. The Climate Study Group puts the cost – never challenged – at $3 billion a year. This figure should be shouted to the rooftops.
All this to meet mythical emissions targets set under the Paris Accord – targets which other countries like China, India and the US never intend to achieve. All in pursuit of the myth of climate change.
There is even the ludicrous suggestion that we should buy “international carbon credits”, costing up to $4 billion a year by 2030, to meet our obligations under the Agreement. The Australian people are being taken for a ride by con-men and hucksters. P.C. WILSON, MIAMI NO need to worry about plastic bags for rubbish.
Ten years ago I bought a couple of cotton shopping bags. I still use them. I have not taken single-use bags from local supermarkets for many years.
Rubbish from the kitchen to the bin goes in the plastic bags most products come in. Keep your bread bags, tea boxes and so on on the bench and put your non-vegetable waste in those. Make a compost pile with non-meat scraps.
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Anybody over 60 remembers we didn’t shrivel up and die before plastic bags were invented. PAUL BENNETT JUST as an asset like light-rail can improve property prices along the route, a new sewerage farm in Logan would have much the same effect.
Any intelligent speculator should be investing there pronto, especially for sought-after views of the farm-all 80 ha of it. DAVID HALL, COOMBABAH THIS week, 8-15 July is NAIDOC Week across Australia. Following this year’s theme of “because of her, we can” I want to tell you about the importance of women in all the work I do especially within my Aboriginal Services.
Women play a significant role in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and this NAIDOC Week we are asked to reflect on their contribution to the growth and development of our country.
For at least 65,000 years Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have carried dreaming stories, songlines, languages and knowledge.
In more recent times they have been there at the forefront of major turning points in Australian culture and history. From the Torres Strait Pearlers strike in 1936, to the 1967 Referendum – which included Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples in Australia’s population figures – to more modern issues such as the 2008 apology, Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander women have been a driving force for Aboriginal rights.
Having strong female role models is absolutely crucial to helping young people grow. Not only is it important for young women, but young men draw so much from mothers, grandmothers, aunties and friends.
We have so much to learn from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their culture.
There are many inspiring stories from women on the NAIDOC week website at: www.naidoc.org.au. This NAIDOC week I ask you to reflect on the theme of “because of her, we can” and think about how important women have been in supporting you and your community.
FATHER CHRIS RILEY,
CEO AND FOUNDER AT YOUTH OFF THE STREETS
AS China has the need to export to Australia their products in all sorts of plastic wrapping and has decided they will not take back all our recyclable plastic, why not charge them a surcharge on all their plastic wrapped goods Australia imports from China and other countries?
Oh, that would put at risk our trade agreements if Australia changes its mind on these agreements.
I believe when times and circumstances change one can also change their mind. As Australia has everything to again be the Lucky Country, except for an industry to manufacture our cheap, throwaway goods, just change the terms of these agreements!
As an American President said: “They need us, we do not need them.” ANGELO CATALANO, BIGGERA WATERS