Letters, August 16, 2023

Upgrade benefits

NOT everyone is a negative Nelly.

I’m a local who plays golf at the Stirling Golf Course with other locals who have been members for over 40 years.

We look forward with many others to the redevelopment and many years of playing on a beautiful course with first class facilities.

If this development fails there is a fair chance that the golf club will also fail.

If this happens the course will quickly be over-run with blackberries and weeds.

The buildings will fall into disrepair and be attractive to vandals and squatters. Do the neighbors really want this to happen?

For the public officer of the Stirling and Districts Residents’ Association to suggest that the city is 15 minutes away for accommodation (Courier, August 9) certainly won’t endear him to the Hills hospitality operators nor to the many people promoting tourism in the Hills.

They are always working hard to encourage visitors to stay up here for two nights or more. Let’s get behind a development our visitors will enjoy and us locals can be proud of.

Ian Farries, Aldgate

Zoo ethics

“PLANS to bring back elephants”, (The Courier, August 9) certainly does not give me any pleasure.

It recalls my early childhood when I was in Grade 1 and my class at school was being told about Samorn, the poor little elephant which was taken from her home and incarcerated at the Adelaide Zoo, to live a lonely, sad and miserable life: she was then transported to Monarto, where she died after she fell into a moat. Samorn never had the joy and love of her natural family because we, humans, stole her for our zoo.

What a terrible legacy that was and, also, what right do we have to decide what animals we trade between one zoo and another and use as breeding machines, for entertainment? No doubt this is the future intention here.

These elephants will never be free to live their lives as nature intended and neither will their babies.

Calling Monarto a “safari park” is just a poor attempt to cover up the real fact that Monarto is a zoo.

A zoo, not for the benefit of the animals, but for our selfish human species.

Christine Pierson, Kensington Park

Rebate on offer

RECENT Council rate increases, in my case 11%, have come as a shock to all.

The Mt Barker council offers a rebate to pensioners, in my case $128, but four pensioners in my street were unaware of the rebate (in fine print on the notice). Pensioners, contact the council and see if you are eligible.

The staff are helpful in the matter.

Keith George, Littlehampton

Free speech at risk

THE Albanese Government is proposing legislation designed to undermine free speech media apps.

If passed, the Australian Communications and Media Authority would become the “arbiter of truth”, with the ability to censor anything on social media that contradicted the Government’s narrative.

The Bill is supported by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Grant, who has proposed a “recalibration of free speech” at the World Economic Forum panel in 2022.

As if this proposal is not sinister enough, the Albansese Government would be exempt from a so-called “Misinformation Bill”, giving them a false assumption of infallibility.

The Australian public know, from bitter experience, that the cabal of health experts and self-interested politicians who sought to control the Covid narrative made serious, harmful mistakes; with the so-called fake news and misinformation proven to be factual and truthful mere months later.

The right to free speech cannot be controlled by any member of a political party and does not hold any political ideology. Regardless of a voter’s political persuasion, this Bill must be opposed.

Andrew Webber, Hahndorf

CO2 benefits

FRANCO Costa (The Courier, August 9) is quite correct.

NASA (from satellites) has reported an increase in greenery of 14% (about Australia’s area) in the last few decades.

The increase in CO2 and the slight increase in temperatures over the last four decades have boosted crop yields, leading to improved life expectancy in Asia and Africa. This, and better health care, has meant children live longer and curiously a slight reduction in the rate of population growth.

Proof of the benefits of extra CO2 is that growers of crops in glasshouses in Europe boost yields with added CO2 around 1000ppm and some warming means Iceland could restart growing barley after an absence of 400 years.

G. Inkster, Mt Barker

Holiday impact

MY household isn’t soccer-specific fans, but are sport supporters and watched, with excitement and pride, the Matildas matches in the world cup.

However, as a small business owner with six full-time employees, how can those in public office justify people like myself paying out over $1600 just in actual wages paid, for an extra day off for workers? It’s tough enough as it is.

Shane Thomson, Mt Barker

Vote consequences

IT’S very simple. If the Yes vote prevails, the Aboriginal people of this country will gain (as they asked for) recognition and respect and perhaps an impression that the wider community has an appreciation for their culture, their roots and their legitimate place at the core of this country.

If the No vote prevails, the opposite will apply.

But the nay-sayers (who have nothing to lose) will be able to claim that they fought off some ill-defined threat to their well-being, and live happily ever after.

Bob Innes, Mt Barker

Fire danger

WITH tragic news from the tropical paradise of Hawaii comes the serious message to us all that this could be our fate.

With most fires approaching townships from the north-west I would like to know why the freeway between Crafers and Stirling is covered in a pine forest?

Surely it’s time the Department of Infrastructure and Transport removed this potential inferno from our doorsteps.

Simon Jones, Stirling