Letters and short takes April 13 2023

As the City of Newcastle website says: "Bathers Way links Newcastle's beaches from Merewether Ocean Baths to Nobbys Beach. The Bathers Way is a fantastic way to discover our coastline...The Bathers Way is great for walkers, runners, scooters and everyone in between. The Bathers Way provides access to all the beaches along this stretch of coast and along the path there are viewing platforms, seating and shade."

Please, City of Newcastle, set up those same temporary fences so we can once again walk from Nobbys to Merewether.

GEOFF Black ("Pamper pooches, but the pups aren't people", Letters, 7/4): I have witnessed people letting dogs lick their plates at a cafe in the bay when I was working in the butchery. Apart from patting the mutt and then handling food by the staff, the meat industry is under the strictest of health regulations and fair enough, but cafes seem to run their own race.

They don't get the level of regulation that butchers have to adhere to because it's not under the same authority. I would personally rather eat a raw kidney that was dropped on a butcher shop floor than eat anything off a plate at a cafe or restaurant that invites slightly educated vermin and their dogs.

YOUR correspondent asks, no doubt rhetorically, if anybody thought Peter Dutton would support The Voice (Short Takes, 10/4). It is interesting to compare Mr Dutton to an earlier Liberal party leader who displayed a similar stance. Although devoid of conscience or scruples and refusing to apologise to the Stolen Generations, John Howard was politically astute enough to know when to change his position on other issues that were top of mind for voters at the time: he abandoned Workchoices (which he believed in) and belatedly acknowledgment of climate change (which he didn't).

I believe Peter Dutton lacks that political nous and, like Turnbull and Morrison, is only concerned with keeping his own position as leader. He believes that means pandering to the party's right wing.

He doesn't seem to understand that if he is to be a leader he must lead, not follow, and that The Voice is now top of mind for many millions of Australians. Like Morrison and Turnbull before him, in my opinion Mr Dutton is showing that he is not a leader's bootlace. Voters will recognise this and dismiss his opposition to The Voice as the political stunt that it is.

ADAM Triggs' ("The Voice is just good economics", Opinion 6/4) reinforces what I have learnt during our current visit to Alice Springs whilst on a two-month road holiday. We spoke with an amazing young woman who has worked with Aboriginal youth in Alice for nine years (when the burnout rate is one to three years). We discussed the issues of the First Nation population, especially the children, and her words were often reflected in Mr Triggs' article.

Indigenous people have been moved onto missions, as happened over the last 150 years, where they live in a hybrid life near white settlements that's part traditional, part white man's ways. There is no handing down of wealth as we white people do with our inheritance, and in some cases there is no inter-generational encouragement for education. Often the institutions that are set up to help are either inadequate or incompetent and alcohol, as in our white communities, causes even more destruction of families and individuals lives. Is it surprising that stories of destruction and mayhem appear from these places?

It is about time we start listening to the Indigenous community leaders and recognise them and their knowledge in understanding the issues their communities face. It is way past the time they should have a Voice.

PAT Garnet, ("No 200 years of wine and roses", Letters, 5/4), says she is compelled to answer my request for her opinion, but then makes no attempt to do so. Instead, Pat says my opinion that the majority of our Indigenous community have benefited from advances in our great country over the past 250 years shows I live under a rock, praising herself as better informed than those with similar views to me. This is a common trend, denigrating those who dare to question claims. At least she didn't throw the often misused "racist" at me.

Ms Garnet, please look around; you'll find Indigenous doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, pollies, tradies, truckies, sporting role models - the list is endless. They're all doing a great job of making this country a better place. Save your pity for the minority who are struggling.

I LOVE the way Australia points the finger at China in goose step with America. China is the up and coming super power, and America does not like it. China has not invaded Afghanistan, Vietnam, or Iraq - all wars built on America lies. China is way ahead of America and Australia in train travel, car manufacture, human body parts, TikTok. The Roman Empire crumbled fighting too many wars and invasions, is the American Empire going the same way? Speaking for myself, I am learning to use chopsticks before it becomes compulsory. At war with China we would become America's buffer zone and as irrelevant as the Liberals.

BRADLEY Perrett denigrates Labor premiers for travelling to China to improve economic and social relationships as "simple provincials who are making themselves so useful to the Chinese Communist Party", ("Premiers, get out of China policy", Opinion, 8/4). It seems to me like Mr Perrett often agrees with the anti-China, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). In 2020, then Labor senator Kim Carr described the ASPI as "an Australian government organisation, a Commonwealth company, and they've been at the centre of Sinophobia. This is what happened in the Cold War, you set up a front and create a world view that's unchallengeable. Then you delegitimise anyone who argues for engagement with China. Ironically, engagement with China remains official government policy".

In my opinion Mr Perrett's regular contributions to this paper reinforce Mr Carr's analysis. Just look at the treatment Paul Keating received for refusing to have an alarmist, anti-China outlook on Australia/China relationships.

TRULY, how many of these suburb slangs did the authors just make up? Most of them I have never heard despite being a Novocastrian all my life. Or maybe I am just getting to the old and cranky stage because I still hate Newcastle being called Newy.

MANY of those advocating voting "no" in the forthcoming referendum on a Voice to Parliament for Indigenous Australians overlook the loss of culture, language, land and livelihood which Indigenous Australians have suffered since British settlement began. There is a gap in living standards which successive governments have failed to close. The referendum gives all voters the opportunity to begin to put right this state of injustice in the name of human rights.

IT appears as though the recently departed shadow Attorney General has no concerns about what a yes vote may do to our constitution. In fact the vast majority of legal people have no issues and I will believe them rather than Peter Devey, ("Keep Voice debate's focus on facts", Letters, 11/4).

THE Voice, the Voice! This is all we hear from Labor and the media. We are all sick of hearing about it. Give us a break. The vote is six months away. We need to hear from Labor regarding what they can do about the cost of food, energy, petrol and more. Do they have a clue what to do about these?

INDIGENOUS activist and Voice proponent Marcia Langton has indicated that if we vote no in the referendum, traditional owners will not give us a welcoming ceremony before sporting and public events. In my opinion that's another great reason to vote NO as I am well and truly over being welcomed to my own country.

ACCORDING to a report by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) in 2019, there were approximately 2.9 million Australians who were aged between 45 and 64 years who did not have any superannuation. This figure includes those who had never had superannuation and those who had previously had superannuation but withdrew their balance. It's important to note that this data is from a few years ago and the situation will have got worse as rents and mortgages have exploded since then. This will mean the government will be saddled with millions more people seeking government pension and other assistance when they are forced to retire.

GUNS and weapons ain't the problem. Humans invented 'em; humans are to blame for their own demise, destroying all and sundry for profit.