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 The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley. In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather to celebrate New Year’s Eve. One of them is killed. Not an accident – a murder among friends.

I AM a self-funded retiree. Through no fault of my own, my income has sunk to the point where I no longer pay tax. I am feeling some financial pressure.

I don’t go to casinos or race tracks, and I don’t have any shares. My gambling is restricted to a weekly Lotto ticket. In Australia’s wonderful, booming economy with its budget surpluses, I would very much like Scott Morrison to make the taxpayers give me some money for nothing. I want a free handout like so many other self-funded retirees get. Why can’t I have one? GRANT AGNEW, COOOPERS PLAINS

AT this very moment the world is on the brink of war between the USA and Venezuela and yet few Australians are aware because the media has not highlighted it.

Does the media want to do the same as the national newspapers did in the Vietnam war or Iraqi war or Libyan war or Syrian war?

This is what should be front page news, and remain front page news for as long as possible because it is in the interests of all Australians to know.

Please let the people know, please carry out your work as professional journalists to the highest level of your professional creed. DR C DASSOS, BROADBEACH

HAVING lived through 14 US Presidents and 17 Australian Prime Ministers, listening to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on February 6, 2019 was the first time in many decades we have heard genuine concern for the benefit of the people not only of the US but of the world.

He spoke of facts. As a successful businessman he deals only with facts, political baloney is alien to

him. He has industry booming, high employment – more women employed, business confidence and investments surging, the people now have a dream for a great future.

National defence is boosted – other countries must pay their share, trade with China and the world no longer abused with tariffs to ensure manufacturers are treated fairly. Theft of intellectual property and abuse of US technology no longer tolerated.

That was the most sincere speech we have heard from a world leader, all facts substantiated with many valid references, 82 minutes of sincerity and brilliant forward planning for a better future for all to aspire to.

Sort of makes you cringe at the poor standard of understanding and presentation here from politicians who show limited understanding of the nation’s and people’s needs, who seem to have little factual awareness because they were never successful businesspeople,

they are forced to use political baloney to cover incompetence. We clearly need an entry standard of IQ, experience and achievement for candidates. G MAY, FORESTDALE

HUNDREDS of thousands of cattle have reportedly drowned in the Queensland floods.

What a tragic and heartbreaking situation and what an enormous amount of suffering these pitiful animals would have endured as they sought desperately, but hopelessly, to stay afloat. Many others, marooned on small outcrops, are still suffering as they stand in the mud – cold, starving.

Clearly the floods could not have been avoided but the deaths could have been – if we stopped eating meat. If we all went vegetarian, these animals would not have been on these cattle stations in the first place.

For those who survive this ordeal there will be no cause for celebration because they will simply

die at a later date in one of our slaughterhouses. Or worse, an Indonesian or Middle Eastern slaughterhouse.

Obviously the world is not going to turn vegan overnight but if we start moving towards it now we can all help alleviate future animal suffering. JENNY MOXHAM

ALREADY two senior bank executives have gone on leave during the Haynes Royal Commission, investigating the ‘big four’ banks accused of shonkiness … (one of them back to Sweden).

Did these people, really think they could get away with it forever? WARREN JAMES

I REMEMBER when I was a much younger man reading about a country cop in Queensland who would take teenagers who had just passed their driving test to the local cemetery to show them the headstones of young drivers who had been killed on local roads.

He spoke of young lives wasted and implored those ‘new’ drivers to respect what they had just achieved, take care, not drink and drive, and not speed.

I wonder how many lives he saved by doing that.

I now find myself with children approaching driving age and I was able to teach them a valuable lesson a couple of days ago as we watched a P-plater paying more attention to her phone than the road.

Numerous times she crossed lanes like a drunk and at each change of lights we could see her face down, on her phone. So engrossed was she, twice as the lights turned green her car remained motionless on the ‘start’ line.

My children were appalled. REG DAVID, MUDGEERABA