Letters and short takes January 13 2021

Pell's death reminds us about the difference between belief and truth. Belief is a human emotional response. Truth is objective. It is not discoverable in the world of metaphysics and superstition.

Staunch believers refused to believe George Pell could be accused of being a child abuser or a protector of child abusers. No amount of objective or personal court evidence would persuade them otherwise. Similarly for the alleged victims, nothing will shake their conviction they were failed by an organisation that should have protected them. Perhaps the best hope is that there is a God who judges people in the afterlife.

SOME people will grieve the passing of Cardinal George Pell ('Death of the cardinal', Newcastle Herald 12/1). Others won't.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in this masthead "Australia had lost a great son and the church had lost a great leader" (''Difficult day' after Pell's death: PM', Herald 12/1). Which begs the question: who will now be Mr. Abbott's spiritual adviser?

WELL, no surprise that there is another large subdivision planned for Wyee Point ('Proposal to turn bushland into suburbia', Newcastle Herald 11/1). Still, we are stuck with an antiquated 1950 bridge to cope with the traffic.

They are spending billions on Sydney roads and yet the population shift is in the Wyong to Newcastle areas. Little do they realise that by going to a high-rise bridge wide enough to cope with the projected population explosion they, by straightening the channel, would alleviate most of the build-up caused by blocking the natural flow with structures such as the present bridge, which was designed to carry only half of its present usage.

There is an argument for the closing of the right turn just south of the bridge, but this a poor quality fix to the major problem caused by a bridge that passed its use-by date 50 years ago. Why is it that Sydney gets the fix-now cash and Newcastle has to join the far queue to get any consideration whatsoever? It's the same old bulldust.

Come on, local political members, do what you were elected to do; serve the people who gave you your cushy job, and stand up to be counted.

A CONTRIBUTOR to this page recently tried to make a comparison I consider ludicrous: that of marriage equality legislation to a constitutional amendment on the Voice (Letters 11/1).

In regard to marriage equality most people could not care less if someone wants to marry someone of the same sex as it is a personal matter and only affects those involved and in the future it can be amended or abolished by legislation.

The Voice to Parliament will change our country's Constitution. If the Voice becomes dysfunctional and/or fails in its objective to improve the lives of Indigenous people, it will need another referendum to amend or abolish as well as being extremely expensive to do so.

Same sex marriage was about equality, I believe the Voice is the opposite.

IN the run-up to the 1967 referendum regarding Aboriginal constitutional changes, Australians were not presented with a 'no' case before voting because parliament had already unanimously supported the proposal. Information sent to voters advised that a 'yes' result would "make it possible for the Commonwealth Parliament to make special laws for the people of the Aboriginal race .... if the parliament considers it necessary". The principle was the government take some responsibility for "special laws" for Aboriginal Australians. There were no spurious projections of what these laws would be. Nobody posed that "special laws" for Aboriginal people would be divisive; create an us-and-them scenario; that the states already looked after Aboriginal people so they didn't need more recognition; or special laws for one group was unfair over others or that it would create a legal and constitutional nightmare. Australians gave permission to the government to work on that principle and our mainstream lives changed little for it. Despite this positive outcome, it's well recognised that conditions for Indigenous Australians are still far behind the rest of us. In the coming referendum, the principle is that a Voice will provide something that has been historically lacking: give Indigenous information to parliament on decisions that will affect them. It's nothing sinister.

DON Fraser (Short Takes, 9/1) made reference to comments by two Indigenous persons speaking against the vote for Voice in Parliament. In support, I supply the words from the National Association of Visual Arts (NAVA). In part, their organisational statement says they recognise and pay respect to the peoples of the Gadigal, Wangai, Dharug, Dharawal, Kaurna, Ngunnawal, Ngambri and Dja Dja Wurrung peoples as traditional owners where they live, learn and work. They pay respect to the elders past, present and future and note sovereignty was never ceded; that this always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Divisions are already there, and regardless of efforts we make it may fail.

THERE have been some articles pertaining the so-called carbon credit scheme. The first ("Big emitters to share $600 million compo", Herald 11/1) has Climate Council spokeswoman Jennifer Ryan talking about 'tricky carbon accounting' to cover up pollution instead of encouraging investment in genuine transformation'. The second article, ("Carbon credits for review", Herald, 11/1), talks about suspicions of widespread fraud with the current national scheme.

I have never been keen on studying the intricacies of accounting practices, preferring to rely on others for the details whilst watching the bottom line that pays the bills. Seemingly, big emitters can buy credits to offset - not reduce - their overall greenhouse gas emissions.

There's no tricky accounting needed here: the sale and associated purchase of these carbon credits changes nothing. The system seems to be that dollars are exchanged without a change in the volume of pollution by the heavy emitters. Simple mathematics at this stage.

AS a regular user of the light rail I see a large number of other passengers simply not bothering to swipe Opal cards when entering or exiting the light rail. I would suggest that the usage is far higher than the data collected via Opal indicates, ("Trips down', Newcastle Herald 9/1)

WHAT ever happened to the government department for rent control? There was a time when landlords had to justify rent increases, and such things as bidding for a place to rent was unheard of.

SILENCE gives consent where Cardinal Pell is concerned; a sad day for the victims of sexual abuse ('Death of the cardinal', Herald 12/1). The old story, laws are always useful to those who have possessions, and harmful to those who have nothing. Damages payable to victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church were capped at $50,000 by Cardinal Pell. Satan would be laughing all the way to the bank.

SPOT on Darryl Tuckwell, ("Stamp duty back in firing line", Letters, 10/1). I too remember stamp duty was to go with the "never ever be a GST" getting in, it was the agreement that got John Howard's GST over the line, then promptly forgotten. Also, beware folks of this replacement land tax pollies are pushing, it will be a tax on your house for life. A good thing to remember is that they would not want to do it if there was not more money in it.

STEVE Barnett (Short Takes, 7/1) apparently thinks 16-year-olds who commit violent crimes should be "locked away" in adult prisons with "no protection". By going out of his way to stipulate "no protection" from adult prisoners, is he expressing some sort of hope or expectation that young offenders would be harmed as part of their punishment? I don't imagine that would do wonders for their chances of rehabilitation. And why stop at 16? Why not 15, or even 14 years old? What a disgusting thing to advocate.

PEOPLE may think I pick on live-in-towners, but how can I not when constantly being given ammunition? In recent days a couple were walking along a footpath in Darby Street and encountered a dog laying on the footpath with its owner at an outside seating area. I thought there was plenty of room to walk around the dog, but the male partner of the couple was heard to utter "move your f---ing dog". When the dog owner confronted this person, he uttered the same expletive and added "or I will kick it!" What a despicable act from a privileged, entitled, selfish person. Yes, I know, he is probably the only person who lives in town that would say that sort of thing, but it was said and I have two witnesses to the incident.