Newcastle Herald letters to the editor: Monday, February 14, 2022

With population expansion and relocation, changes transpire: road traffic menaces occur despite warning signs; directions and signals designed to protect.

Urbanisation of course has its introduced domestic animal attribution and dog-cat attachments. Cats particularly are instinctively predatory, spreading across the entire Australian landmass, a danger to small and injured animal types especially.

Bushfires devastated our wildlife populations, with thousands of koalas lost.

Look at the many housing developments where squeezed-in rooftops dominate and not a tree is to be seen; skimpy animal corridors arranged as a sweetener.

Undoubtedly the koala is under dire threat. Bushfires, land-clearing, mankind activities and off-hand cognizance by some of influence will see one of our national icons threatened to near oblivion, without severe administrative re-direction.

SINCE WWII, Australia has been involved in three military campaigns that resulted in some 568 Australians being killed with 521 dying in Vietnam. In regard to Vietnam, tens of thousands marched in the streets of our country protesting the killings.

In the current war against the pandemic over 1500 of our citizens have died of the virus that I believe your correspondent Carl Stevenson ('Winning war against pandemic', Letters, 9/2) believes the present Morrison government needs the assistance of the Opposition to defeat the pandemic.

As most of these casualties have been my fellow aged I would gladly implore everyone to help this government defend the aged from the virus. However the PM and his useless minister keep telling us there is no crisis so it is OK for them to spend days at the cricket as hundreds of patients died from lack of care and infections.

From my regular viewing of parliamentary proceedings, as a 92-year-old I can't do much else, I recall on many occasions Mr Albanese pledged the Opposition's full cooperation if the Morrison government would urgently implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission to reform the aged care industry to stop the litany of abuse and neglect recorded by the RC and protect the aged from the pandemic

Now that members of the Coalition government have confirmed their opinion of the PM is in line with most of the voters I find it hard that even diehards like Carl can still go to the defense of a PM that has failed to keep any of his promises and particularly his promise to the aged that he would protect and care for them as is his responsibility, but prefers his minister to spend his time at the cricket as the casualties mount.

ROBERT West ('People should pay for irresponsible choices', Letters, 2/2) presumes that his elective surgery was cancelled because a private hospital bed might have been needed for an unvaccinated COVID patient. Maybe, but recent figures show (as at January 23) over 70 per cent of hospitalised COVID patients in NSW, and over 60 per cent of those in ICU, as being double vaccinated.

Mr West suggests that unvaccinated patients should give up their right to publicly funded ambulance and hospital services and pay extra. Would he deny treatment to those unable to pay? Do we penalise all who make risky health choices, apart from Mr West's irresponsible smokers and "vaccine deniers": alcoholics, drug addicts, the obese and motorcyclists, for instance?

ONE must need to be of a certain age and experience to be unexcited by the revelation that unemployment could achieve a 50 year low.

This comparison is invalid. Fifty years ago we did not define being employed by working just three hours per week. The disintegration of the labour market into uncertain employment arrangements like gig, casualisation, one-way protection contracts of employment and people working multiple piece work jobs has the nation looking more like a Dickensian novel.

Perhaps if the concept of real jobs (35 to 40 hours per week) were reintroduced the piecemeal job vacancy numbers would not appear to be high.

That is by eliminating one person performing a number of low hour jobs in an attempt to survive.

Current allegations of shameful working arrangements for imported workers reveals modern day slavery is alive and well. Where is William Wilberforce when you need him?

GEOFF Black's letter is much too simplistic and scathing regarding COVID, science and religion ('Sacrificing to god of COVID', Letters, 5/2).

Lumping everyone who wonders and hesitates into a conspiracy theory/anti-vaxxer basket surely is generalising.

Big questions should and need to be asked about Big Pharma and its huge profits. Also remember when science discouraged us all from eating eggs because they raised cholesterol?

We are quick to forget the huge numbers of animals involved in experimentation.Then there are the human deaths and severe complications due to drug experimentation including vaccines especially in third world countries. Are they not science's sacrifices?

Religion and science are made up of flawed human beings like the rest of us trying to better or make sense of the world according to different persuasions.

Neither deserve blind faith because neither have all the answers and both are subject to change.

I REALISE that some people are booked for only a slight increase above the speed limit (example 65 in a 60 zone) and it is easy when driving among other cars to not be aware that the cars in front have drifted above the limit.

However, the speed limit is set as a safety measure, and it is your responsibility to keep a check on your speed - not relying on those around you. Whether speeding by a small margin is unfair or not, is another matter.

What I would like people to consider is that if 99 per cent of people are obeying the law ('Mobile speed cameras rake in eye watering revenue in Hunter', Herald, 5/2), that still means 1 per cent are not - considering how many cars are on the road, that is a lot of speeding incidences in a day. Surely that gives the government the right to detect them. Giving these people warning of a speed camera allows them to slam on the brakes and avoid their responsibility, then renew their dangerous behaviour in 'safety' until warned in advance next time.

SHORT TAKES

WITH KEPCO finally defeated in the courts ('High Court dismissal a way forward', Newcastle Herald, 11/2), now is the time for the NSW government to terminate the Bylong Valley coal lease, and establish Tarwyn Park as a training centre for regenerative agriculture.

VERY interesting that the prime minister Scott Morrison has advised since before Christmas that all Australians will need to be triple-vaxxed to beat omicron, now he is telling us that it's OK for tourists to enter Australia after only being double-vaxxed. Makes you wonder how good all the previous ATAGI advice was.

GOOD to see Andrew McManus pushing ahead with the Under The Southern Stars festival. I applied for a refund three months ago as the venue, line-up and actual day had changed from a Saturday to a Friday, which doesn't suit me. Strange how he took my $600 straight out of my account when I purchased two tickets, but won't refund me straight away. Not happy Jan.

GOOD to see Dave McTaggart admitting he was a dolt for being caught speeding. I have been driving for 57 years, around 25,000km a year, city and country, never having a speeding or any other ticket. The secret is to stick to the road rules.

THE Morrison government has failed to take advantage of its miraculous election victory in 2019. If God did provide a miracle in 2019, he must be disappointed and annoyed by now, since the Morrison government has failed to deliver from 2019-2022. God should therefore be loath to give another miraculous election victory to the Morrison government in 2022. If Morrison wins again, and people again declare a miracle, maybe this miracle will have come from the dark side.

STEVE Barnett, as you ask, Ash "please, it's only a game" Barty, is far, far more than that (Short Takes, 1/2). Ms Barty is always very inclusive of her success. Ms Barty does not see her worth by the notches in her belt. Being a person of community is the worthiness. It is always open for a person to go for a win. One of the true tests, however, is how a person handles losing. For the record, runner-up Danielle Collins could not praise Ms Barty's sensational game more highly. I was encouraged to write this by Peter Sansom's letter ('Those we depend on', Letters, 1/2) that no one should be taken for granted, the beauty of Ms Barty's example; the beauty of all of us, really.

I WONDER how many anti-vaxxer, so-called influencers, use Botox.