Letter of the Week

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 Harper Collins. This month’s book prize is When it all went to custard by Danielle Hawkins. Jenny Reynol

DEAR Bill Shorten,

Just one more question before I go to vote on Saturday.

Even though you don’t believe in Heaven, I’m still a bit concerned that you may bring in yet another new tax, that being a tax on ‘Gifts from Heaven’.

If that is going to happen I’m terribly worried that I will have to let go of my life partner of the last 17 years, because there’s not enough hours each week to earn the money I would have to pay in tax each year.

I’m assuming you’ll let me know the answer “after the election” just like all the other crucial questions you’ve refused to answer so far. ADAM FUTCHER, BROADBEACH WATERS

RE: Bernie Toole, Bilambil Heights

(GCB, 16/5).

I do agree regarding Scenic Drive and its lack of guardrails, but your dam/tourism/jobs idea left me laughing out loud!

Many Tweed Heads locals live here for the very reason “we are not the Gold Coast”, and despise all the fake “glitz and glamour” north of the border. I love the green spaces and open air of the Tweed and will fight to keep it that way. DIAN CLAYTON, BILAMBIL HEIGHTS

I ASSUME most older people remember that Charles Kingsford Smith landed the Southern Cross at Eagle Farm Airport (Brisbane Airport) after being the first to cross from America to Australia.

Coolangatta Airport (I think it was referred to as Bilinga Airport) has been there for more than 70 years. I remember visiting as a kid.

It seems to be a common problem with people buying homes near infrastruture (including major road networks) that have an annoying habit of expanding as time goes by. It would have been a grand idea for people like Mr Bernie Gabriel to have purchased a home in an area with less expansion prospects. JOHN McALLAN, ADVANCETOWN

JUST on the religious revolution in Australia ... l will just remain a very badly lapsed Roman Catholic if that’s alright. Nothing can save me. Live and let live, basically.

Luckily l am way too old for fornication. It is so liberating. To be free of the biological imperative, and all that.

But l do like my wine, and after a few glasses, l do feel quite spiritual. ln vino veritas, and all that. DAVID HALL, COOMBABAH

IT is a truth universally acknowledged” that capacity and planning absolutely require transparency.

Our Council, in the sixth largest city in Australia, is the size of a small government. (GC City “bursting at seams” due to population boom’, GCB, 16/5)

As infrastructure, social and environmental, is strained, so accountability, in decision making is crucial.

It is astonishing an elected

Councillor, Peter Young, presumably along with others , has apparently not had access to the instruction, issued by Mayoral Directive, that a draft strategy on transport has been jettisoned. (City Hall Secrecy Stoush, GCB, 16/5)

Apart from the fact that this Councillor has professional experience in the area, the fact that policy decision could be subject to a unilateral Mayoral Directive, rather than full Council scrutiny, beggars belief.

This seems akin to centrist setups existing in less developed areas of the world.

Also that a recent Council meeting should have an extraordinary amount of time devoted to cogitation and explanation of the use of the word “frivolous”, apparently used by Cr Donna Gates, in relation to complaints to Office of Independent Investigator, is extraordinary. (Questions asked of OIA Council Inquiry, GCB, 16/5)

It is most unfortunate that the perception that Cr Gates was perceived to take lightly concerns, re the five-year campaign to save Black Swan Lake, was in focus.

To devote lengthy publicly paid time to protracted pondering on a matter of possibly ill-judged commentary , in a City with real planning and population policy needs, lacks 20/20 vision.

The 2020 Council elections, may bring a fresh approach.

But is not future proofing the City when time and capacity are in a traffic jam now. SALLY SPAIN, GOLD COAST