Letters, March 8, 2023

Renewable issues

TWO letters in The Courier (Puzzling decision and Gas Shock, March 1) demonised gas in favor of renewables.

Whilst the motives may be admirable, the understanding of energy industry is not.

Roof top solar may reduce our bills, but renewables can’t provide base load energy and require other forms as back up.

In Australia the only two options currently available are coal and gas.

But let’s put things into perspective.

To get the same amount of energy generated by one coal-fired plant, we would need 17 wind farms each consisting of 100 wind turbines.

Each turbine requires eight tonnes of copper.

Just to meet the now superseded Paris climate agreement targets, 10 million tonnes of additional copper would have to be found over the next ten years.

This would not be possible without using copious amounts of fossil fuels and remember that copper is only one of many materials required.

Then there are the solar panels of which 90% are sourced from China.

To cater for the manufacturing demand, China will commission more than 100GW of new coal power plants within few years.

Whether we like it or not, fossil fuels are here to stay for the foreseeable future playing a major part in sustaining our very existence.

K. Stachovic, Meadows

Cat dispute

IAN Westley has actually proved exactly what I said in my letter regarding the Vacuum Effect (Cat carnage, The Courier, February 22) – that there is no cat-free area in an open system that sustains cats, unless there is something that keeps the cats out 24/7, as new cats simply fill the void if cats are removed.

He quotes Sarah Legge that if it were not for the islands and fenced areas certain species would be extinct.

This may be correct as these are not open systems and new animals cannot fill the vacuum. And it is not only cats that are killed in these enclosed areas.

Almost all of Australia is an open system so there is no possible way that killing, removing or confining cats is going to eradicate them there, so instead of talking about “pie in the sky” why not face facts: that eradication is not possible so as far as pet cats are concerned, reduction by prevention of breeding, (the only method that has shown tangible evidence of success) to the minimum required to hold territories and keep other new undesexed cat out, is the answer. Furthermore, if an estimated 340 million native animals are killed by pet cats then, considering that cats prefer to eat introduced animals than native ones, at a rate of 10 times as many, (check the scientific surveys), then I could estimate that 3,400 million introduced animals are killed by cats.

What would we do without cats to control the rabbits, rats, mice and non-native birds, which would breed at an uncontrolled rate and eat out the vegetation, birds eggs and fledglings, as well as over-running our homes, chewing wiring and inundating us with bird droppings? Remember, rat baits kill and are killing native animals every day.

Without cats, these introduced animals would also take over the territory which continues to sustain multiple native species, regardless of the fact that cats have been here for well over 500 years, survivors from the wrecks of the early trading ships.

View the whole picture, not just the fragmented views of some writers.

Christine Pierson, C.A.T.S. Cats Assistance To Sterilise

Go vegetarian

RESPONDING to Investigation after truck rolls, (The Courier, March 1).

This is just another reason why we should change from eating the bodies of sentient little sheep, to a plant-based diet. The 416 sheep on the truck suffered terribly and many would have had an agonising death.

The 275 that were able to be transported back to their owner’s property will now suffer from their ordeal and the terror of the accident.

But, after the bruises heal and the pain from the injuries has finally ceased, these poor animals will be re-loaded and sent back to the abattoirs to be slaughtered. What kind of people are we to allow such cruelty?

Spencer Morgan, Moana

Declining service

THE latest marketing by large corporations like Aus Post includes plans to reduce postal deliveries to private letter boxes because of a fall in previous usage and therefore their profit.

At the same time Aus Post recorded a profitable parcel delivery network.

Aus Post, like our public transport system, education system et cetera, was established to provide equitable service to the public, but is now suffering from declining service levels.

Surely Aus Post should continue to carry a letter postage section supported by its lucrative parcel post as part of a comprehensive mailing system to cater for all needs within the community.

Glen Chenoweth, Goolwa North

Verbal attack

IF anyone doubted the coarsening of public discourse of late, Douglas McCarty’s ad hominem attack (Voice needed, The Courier, March 1) would surely disabuse them.

Jenny Scales, Mt Barker

First Nations history

YOUR correspondent Brian Baker, (The Courier, February 22) rightly ascertains that there was no Aboriginal Fauna Act (although I would not cite Wikipedia as a wholly reliable source).

However, that Aboriginal people were counted in the same way as stock on station reports, in museum reports where Aboriginal skeletal remains were listed with faunal remains is entirely accurate.

These are only two such cases where this occurred.

Although Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were technically granted Australian citizenship under the Nationality and Citizenship Act in 1948 this was not recognized widely under the many Acts that governed the lives of Aboriginal people in Australia.

Firstly the Act only covered those Aboriginal people born after January 1, 1921, and the fact that the Constitution empowered the Parliament to make ‘special laws’ for Aboriginal people meant that there were no social rights given to Aboriginal people.

In 1955, Sir Garfield Barwick the then Attorney-General interpreted this section as ‘allowing general laws, such as those giving social service benefits, not to be regarded as ‘special laws’.

Despite this ruling, Aboriginal Australians were still excluded from social rights granted to other Australian Citizens. The only people that were actually acknowledged in the ruling were those Aboriginal individuals/families who had applied for and been successful in gaining exemption from being an Aboriginal person.

Even then pensions and allowances were not paid to Aboriginal applicants but to an authority of a State as per the Aborigines Protection Act which was not repealed until 1969, two years after the Referendum which enabled Aboriginal peoples to be counted in the census.

My father was born in 1938 and his Defence Force papers clearly state that he is a British Citizen – he was allowed to join the ADF but was not recognized as an Australian citizen.

Under the Commonwealth Marriage Act 1961, Aboriginal people were unable to marry without consent of authorities until 1971.

They could not leave Australia without permission of the Minister for Immigration and all Aboriginal children born prior to 1964 in SA were legally Wards of the State until age 21 and their lives were determined by the Protector of Aborigines.

I was born under that Act.

I suggest that all those citing the 1948 Act or other such Acts research more thoroughly than Wikipedia to find out what was happening to Aboriginal people in the 20th Century.

Deanne Hanchant-Nichols, Uraidla