Letters to the editor September 24 2019

Against all advice from the medical and police fraternities, and the majority concerns of the public, Ms Berejiklian thinks that it will be alright to return to the previous disastrous all-night swill at Sydney pubs ('NSW Premier wants to relax lockout laws', NewcastleHerald 9/9).

I believe Newcastle residents must be vigilant to retain their peaceful night time ambience hard won over the state government's dependence, and cosy alliance, with the hotels and alcohol industry

A return to the disgraceful, dangerous, drunken behaviour of years past in our city would be a retrograde step.

The constant blathering about "activation" of cities by increasing the volumes of grog being available through more hours of availability serves only the suppliers of alcohol. Residents, ambos, police and hospitals bear the true cost.

Kate Elderton, Toronto

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YOUTH VOTING WITH FEET

BOTH the Liberal and Labor parties were both ignored by most young protesters at Friday's rallies.

Older generations are conditioned to lies and hypocrisy in daily doses from politicians of every brand.

Not so for young Australians.

They don't take to games of one-upsmanship in parliament, nor do they favour vengeful attacks on members of their own parties.

Young people are protesting with their feet and with their minds. They defy the rules that keep their elders captives of an apathetic bubble in Canberra.

Mr Morrison is at the top of that out-of-touch bubble. Mr Morrison, it's time you took a big stick to young Australians. They know you and Labor don't have the answers.

John Butler, Windella Downs

PROTEST'S BRUSH TOO BROAD

I HAD the misfortune to be in Hyde Park when the climate protesters were dispersing last Friday ('Signs of the times', Herald 21/9).

Children as young as three were carrying signs they did not have a clue about. Some parents, teachers and Greenies have a lot to answer to for letting small children get caught up in this.

Signs saying "No Adani" was one of the many. The train has already left the station, it has already been okayed. One young girl who looked about 13 had a sign saying "F*** THE POLICE" with the full spelling.

Her parents must be so proud. What have the police got to do with the climate?

In my view that sign summed up the mentality of many of these youth protesters, who have been fed a lot of misinformation and are unaware of some of the facts.

Don Fraser, Belmont

BALLOT TO GIVE THE BOOT

OUR electoral system sorely needs reform. In my view many of our MPs do not represent the voters who elected them; instead they represent themselves, their parties, their business cronies, their union mates, their families and their financial donors.

I believe that often MPs do not even try to honour their promises to voters.

I suggest that voters should be able to replace poorly-performing MPs before a scheduled election. Here is a mechanism that could do this.

Firstly, disaffected voters in an electorate would present a petition to remove their sitting MP to a specialist tribunal run by the electoral commission. This petition would need to contain the signatures of, say, a third of the electorate's listed voters.

The petition would be supported with evidence such as the MP's speeches, voting records that contradict their election promises, fact-checks that contradict the MP's claims or comments, news releases, et cetera.

MPs would be able to present their own defence cases to the tribunal.

If the tribunal, having heard evidence from both sides, believed that an MP hadn't served their electorate as promised then the Tribunal would dismiss the MP and order a by-election.

At the by-election, the ousted MP would be ineligible to stand. Furthermore, he or she would be required to refund any public funding of their previous election campaign.

MPs may suggest that this mechanism would stifle deal-making and the passage of government legislation, but it would certainly keep them honest.

Geoff Black Caves Beach

BUYERS BEWARE OF HUBRIS

JOHN Hill (Short Takes, 20/9) infers that we can blame successive governments for the declining number of home ownership in Australia . I beg to differ.

I firmly believe that it is more likely to be the rising expectations of first home buyers.

I am one of the "baby boomer" generation when most of us did purchase our first home when we were very young.

What we didn't do was have an expectation that we would have a couple of overseas holidays every year, eat out at cafes and restaurants and eat take-away.

Our clothing was simple and sometimes home sewed, and when we finally saved for a home deposit we didn't expect four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a triple-car garage.

We bought in affordable suburbs and renovated, sometimes for years. Some of us worked on factory floors at mundane jobs and were not among the privileged ones chosen for university.

We had no sense of entitlement. We used public phone boxes. We did not blame governments for what we didn't have, we just worked hard, and so did our parents.

So let's stop the blaming of governments for the declining number of home owners, because each generation wants to give their children a better life and in most cases we succeeded.

We just need them to drop that sense of entitlement and prioritise home ownership if that's what they really want.

Denise Lindus Trummel, Mayfield

REFS RUINING FINAL THRILLS

RUGBY league is no longer the greatest game of all.

The advent of the sin-bin and on report systems has taken away all common-sense interpretations from our match officials, who now instantaneously raise two hands or point to the sheds in situations where years ago a good old fashioned warning or, if necessary, a send-off, was applied.

Friday night's semi-final finish was ruined when Gerard Sutton quite correctly sin-binned Manly's Tom Trbojevic under present day rules, but in my era I simply awarded a penalty kick and took into account that the player had experienced a sudden rush of blood to the head, spoke sternly to him and moved on.

On Saturday Cameron Smith "lost his cool" but did no harm to anybody. He was sin-binned unnecessarily by referee Ben Cummins on advice from the bunker's Jared Maxwell. Surely common sense should have been applied, a reprimand given to Smith and the game moved on.

I believe it was an embarrassment to our great game sin-binning Smith, who had an unblemished record in the fixture.

David Crich, Tenambit

KIDS are giving the ScoMo and Co a lesson in survival of the species with their climate strike ('Signs of the times', Newcastle Herald 21/9). Kids are standing up for their future because governments ain't listening, and seem hellbent on leaving a them a wasteland. Short-sighted and greedy economics is destroying the planet and the kids can see what's coming, but the politicians can't.

Larry Hughes, Wollombi

REPORTS that children as young as 10 are anxious about the effects of climate change reminds me that as a child (I am 70 years old) we were constantly bombarded with news of the Cold War with Russia and the possibility that they could press the red button and blow the world to smithereens. My children (born in the 1970s and 1980s) witnessed the destruction of the twin towers on 9/11 and feared that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda would dominate the world. Children being anxious about the possibility of potential catastrophic world events destroying their world is not new. Sad, but true.

Ruth Burrell, Merewether

I WATCHED the climate change protest and strike on TV ('Signs of the times', Herald 21/9). There were kids as young as three, four and five years old chanting and waving posters. I believe it was disgraceful and that their parents should be held responsible.

John Keen, Gateshead

GREAT cartoon by Peter Lewis (Opinion, 21/9) showing the pending destruction of Stockton Beach. Surely part of the billions received from the sale of Port Newcastle could be used for the rehabilitation of this lovely beach instead of being channelled to Sydney for undisclosed projects.

John William Hill, Williamtown

THE lack of action from the relevant authorities in both the Williamtown and now Stockton disasters is staggering and disgusting. I bet things would be different if they or their kin lived in one of these areas.

Brad Jones, Fern Bay

DAM the Styx! Why can't we build a low level impoundment dam wall on Styx Creek beside Tighes Hill TAFE and pump the water collected in storm events via pipeline straight to Grahamstown dam via a specialised filtration system? That creek system has a large catchment that is completely underutilised and all water is lost.

Andrew Campbell, Jesmond

AFTER the pomp and circumstance of Scott Morrison's Trump Empire visit, Mr. Morrison pledged $150 million to assist in the support of NASA's progress to the Moon and Mars ('Australia shoots for stars with US deal', Herald 23/9). Let's hope they spend it wisely.

Daphne Hughes, Kahibah

AS soon as Scott Morrison was off the plane in Washington, he was grovelling. He was now in the land of the free and the home of the brave, he said. So how would he describe the country he left behind?

Grant Agnew, Coopers Plains

THE POLLS

DO you think enough is being done to support drought-affected farmers?

Yes, 13% No, 87%