Letters, July 19, 2023

Drowning voices

EMOTIONAL blackmail has been used to manipulate people over millennia.

Likewise, the Labor government is guilting Australians into supporting the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Oddly enough, the Yes campaign is trying to drown out any Indigenous voices that oppose it.

Whenever our Prime Minister is asked to give some details about The Voice, he highlights the disadvantages facing the Indigenous people without explaining how it will work.

He also says that all previous efforts to close the gap have failed.

So, that begs the question; are the taxpayers still funding the entities responsible for this failure and more importantly will the same people be in charge of The Voice?

And there is another ominous issue related to this. Reuters poll shows seven out of ten largest Australian companies endorsed the voice.

Our four big banks, Telstra, Coles and Woolies are all in support and yet 50% of Australian public seem to reject it. Obviously, these corporations are not conveying the expressions of their customers or shareholders.

The accumulated power and influence of these corporations is something we need to be aware of and must not let control us.

Just remember, the Referendum is a secret ballot.

Your employer, sporting organisation or financial institution can’t follow you into the voting booth.

It’s your own decision without fear or favor.

Kon Stachovic, Meadows

Immune system

I AM with Sydney Lewis regarding Flu prevention (‘Flu prevention’, The Courier, June 28).

With organic gardening, you feed the soil and the plants properly and the plants do not get bugs.

Feed a dog ‘species-appropriate food’ and the dog should be healthier.

My 91-year-old mum eats ‘species-appropriate food’ – lots of fresh, live and unprocessed food, nuts and unprocessed meats, wholegrain foods, minimum sugar or soft drinks and she never has a flu shot and never gets the flu.

Every plate we eat at home is 70% home grown food all year round.

I don’t get the flu or flu shots either.

Twenty years ago I had flu.

Went to bed for a good few days, felt terrible for two days after that – I had a great read of a fascinating book (Islands of a Forgotten Sea by Thomas Victor Bulpin) and my immune system had some exercise.

Lost a bit of weight.

Not a big deal.

Caroline Johnson, Aldgate

Dishonest party

GIVEN the revelations of the Royal Commission into Robodebt, is it time for the Federal Liberal Party of Australia (LPA) to change its name?

The destruction of the LPA began back in the 1990s.

Its worst deceitful and knowingly dishonest action was when John Howard, without the authority of the Federal Parliament, joined the US in its allegedly illegal invasion of Iraq.

The Robodebt report now reveals that they are not only all of the above but we must add the words dishonest and corrupt to the mix.

The current Federal Opposition no longer represents the centre-right of Australian politics.

It represents all that is ugly, dishonest and corrupt.

Robert McCormick, Bridgewater

Snookums the cat

TRUTH be told, I’m not the biggest fan of cats.

According to the Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the National Environmental Science Program, your average roaming pet cat – let’s call them Snookums – kills 186 vertebrates (mammals, reptiles, and birds) a year.

And if Snookums goes feral, that number goes up to 449 vertebrates in urban areas and 791 out in the bush.

Collectively, cats kill about 2 billion Australian reptiles, birds, frogs and mammals each year, and over a billion invertebrates.

That’s 3.2 million mammals, 1.9 million reptiles, and 1.2 million birds every day. I haven’t wanted to buy into the cat letters, but when I read the specious nonsense from Ms Allan claiming that “cats are being used as a scapegoat for human destruction of wildlife” (‘Agonizing death’, The Courier, July 12), I gagged on my cereal like a furball.

Humans aren’t off the hook for even a moment – who’s responsible for the cats, after all? – but all credible research confirms that Snookums is a native animal serial killing machine.

Indeed, if Snookums was a human, they’d be doing multiple life sentences for animal cruelty.

Michael Cornish, Bridgewater

Direct rail

I REFER to Lynton Vonow’s letter ‘Train Bypass’ (The Courier, July 12).

He correctly states that the existing Hills railway is inefficient, but then opines that a railway bypass along the eastern side of the Hills is a better option – to move freight quickly on to Perth and Darwin.

This would be a major project, but while it might move freight efficiently on to Perth and Darwin, it would make delivery of freight into Adelaide a matter of having to backtrack from the vicinity of the Barossa Valley.

It might result in the removal of squealing train brakes from the central Hills, but it would ensure that the residents of the northern Hills and Barossa districts get them instead.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation has studied the matter in a report published about 20 years ago.

It costed four options, including two eastern bypasses, the upgrade of the present track and a tunnel directly from the vicinity of Mt Baker to Torrens Park, concluding that it preferred the direct tunnel, from the points of view of both cost and efficiency.

I concur with that conclusion: a rail tunnel directly from Mt Barker to Adelaide would be a marvellous fix for both the rail freight problem and fast, comfortable movement of Hills passengers.

Michael Watson, Bradbury