YOUR VIEWS
MOST who witnessed on TV the recent arrival of P&O Australia’s cruise ship, Pacific Explorer, would have been moved by the experience and swept up in the enthusiasm of those watching from shore or aboard various vessels on Sydney Harbour. It was a fine sight. “We’re home” proclaimed a giant banner at the front of the ship, the first major cruise ship to return to Australian waters after a two-year hiatus.
Pacific Explorer leaves Sydney on the 31st of this month on her first post-pandemic cruise and my wife and I look forward to being on-board. Our destination, Brisbane, where she will be the first ship to call at their new cruise terminal. How I wish it was to be a Gold Coast cruise terminal instead.
Sometime in the future cruise ships will call at the Gold Coast. They will be welcomed and bring thousands of tourists to our city. Mayor Tom Tait’s instincts will have been proved correct and many of us will wonder what the fuss and delay was all about.
In the meantime the vast cruising market is taking its money elsewhere. GAVIN HARPER, HOPE ISLAND
DARRYL Hennig is right to cast doubt on a “cow-led” solution for dealing with global warming issues (GCB, 2/5). Tasmania has become a carbon sink rather than emitter and kept all its cows. Cows cannot add any carbon to the atmosphere beyond what they take from it as they eat.
We know that, whether or not we agree, there is “an idiotic climate catastrophe” and there is a worldwide retreat from fossil fuel use driven by individuals, commercial interests, farmers and nearly all governments in the world concerned about contribution to air pollution and environmental damage. We are waking up to the economic and environmental value of less energy-intensive activities.
The impacts of these changes flow through our whole society. We need transition arrangements for our whole economy, not just for mining interests.
Commentators are pointing out in our current election campaigns that the only major political party properly recognising this need and planning for it is the Greens. Think about this before you vote, as the implications of the natural and economic changes will be greater for the Gold Coast than for almost anywhere else with its vulnerable coast, canals and landscapes, commuter culture and narrow economic base with great reliance on diminishing tourism.
NELSON QUINN, SOUTHPORT
PETER Gleeson’s article in the GCB last Saturday, on “China has no business in our country”, twice mentions the need for the Foreign Investment Review Board to step in and ban Chinese development projects.
He chose to omit previous bungles by this board. In particular, authorising the 99-year leases of the ports of Darwin and Newcastle, by Chinese interests.
The government stood by and allowed this to happen and when China and the Solomon Islands came to a security agreement, the Australian government cried foul and demanded this agreement be nullified. The Australian mantra on this issue highlights the old saying, “Do as I say, not what I do”. DOUG MCCARTNEY,
GOLD COAST