I APPLAUD Richard di Natale for his upbraiding of the Queensland Senator Barry O'Sullivan for his disrespectful, unacceptable antics (‘Richard Di Natale suspended from Senate after calling Barry O'Sullivan a 'pig' over 'sexist filth'’, ABC 27/11). It isn't considered appropriate to mock anyone's physical appearance, though.
Suzanne Russell, Rivett
STEVE Barnett (Short Takes 28/11) irrationally demands Ruby Walker (‘Student strike an appeal for political action’, Opinion 26/11) eschew current technology because she supports action on climate change. Steve, all new technologies are built on the back of existing technologies. Gronk didn’t stop using rocks while developing technologies for the Bronze Age as you would have insisted he do. And Henry Ford still used horses and steam while developing the combustion engine. He actually had a message for you – “All the wise people (said) that the engine could not compete with steam. That is the way with wise people – they are so wise and practical that they always know to a dot just why something cannot be done.”
John Arnold, Anna Bay
JEREMY Bath wants to see the former Railway Station utilised seven days a week (Letters 26/11) Could I remind him if the light rail had been directed along the original rail corridor, it would have been.
John Fear, Newcastle East
GARRY Blair (Short Takes 27/11) calling racing car drivers "heroes" is a bit of a stretch when compared to real heroes like Kurt Fearnley. I reckon running marathons or crawling the Kokoda Track on hands and knees would be a bit harder than sitting down driving a machine around in circles? It's even a stretch calling that "sport".
Greg Hunt, Newcastle West
BRUCE Brown (Short Takes 28/11), I am glad I live in a country that doesn’t punish the innocent relatives of criminals, rather than one that does.
Sean Farnham, Kurri Kurri
IS Bruce Brown (Short Takes 28/11) the first to strike a blow for the next federal government some months away? His comment endorses what is apparent to 50% of the voting public – no place for women in politics. Is there a God who could send us a Hercules (not Poirot) to clean out the Aegean stables and start afresh, with people who want to represent us, the public, in the distribution of our money? Let those who are without sin amongst us be the first to cast a stone.
June Porter, Warners Bay
BRUCE Brown (Short Takes, 28/11), my chooks could scratch up something more relevant. What does a former addict’s 32-year-old conviction have to do with someone else who was still at school at the time? The child of immigrants who separately escaped communist Europe, the deputy leader of the federal Opposition holds degrees from the University of Technology and Macquarie University, beginning her working life in the domestic violence unit of the state government’s Office for the Status and Advancement of Women. Her husband has since also become a spectacular success.
