FOR an intelligent species we aren't so clever. How many years have we seen the same scenario of ignorance when it comes to reducing flooding to townships, the ability to regenerate drought stricken rural areas and the ability to protect our native fauna and flora from bushfire?
Forget the heightening of dam walls; if our governments had started installing and constructing numerous flood mitigation pumping stations with a network of pipelines from the dam and river systems from the coastal areas across the rural inland areas, flooding would be significantly reduced and the inland areas would once again be highly productive. Forget protesting about global warming, put your passion and energy towards something that would achieve concrete results, helping our communities.
Graeme Kime, Cameron Park
Unique hazards to car fires
I BOUGHT a secondhand hybrid car with the intent to pull the motor out and couple it to a three-phase generator. I wanted a low-cost power supply.
In doing so, I accidentally picked up a brown snake from the engine bay. That led to rushing a tool pack-up, sparks from a battery and setting my paddock on fire. Within minutes the whole car was engulfed in flames. The fire brigade arrived and the remains of the smouldering car were extinguished. During the process the fumes were nothing like I have smelt before. At up to 100 metres away I could feel the impact on my lungs (as I tried to get upwind).
That experience made me realise our country has an enormous problem with the storage of electric and hybrid cars. There is no way I would like to escape a burning building with the extremely dangerous fumes given off by car fires. We need building codes where electric vehicles are stored in buildings and garages not attached to houses. We also need garages to have collapsible roofs in case of car fires to vent the fumes immediately.
Electric cars are here to stay. We need to start addressing how they are safely stored before we see too many fatalities.
Greg Adamson, Griffith
Atrocities in Israel foreseeable
THE Hamas attack on Israel, taking hostages and killing civilians, will not be a God-given "victory". It won't help Palestinians, who will pay an even greater cost. Israel's far right government is unleashing terrible retaliation on the people of Gaza who already live in an open-air prison. Gilbert Achcar, writer on the Middle East said on October 9, "The very idea that such an operation, however spectacular it was, could achieve "victory" can only stem from the religious type of magical thinking that is characteristic of a fundamentalist movement like Hamas". Israel has massive military superiority and will likely try to wipe out Hamas and its allies from the Gaza Strip at a huge cost for civilians.
The international community should also take responsibility for not doing enough about the oppression of the Palestinian people. For many years Palestinians organised peaceful, non-violent mass political actions to highlight Israel's oppression, occupation, and settler-colonial expansion. Many have been jailed for their peaceful resistance. Palestinians will likely continue their non-violent mass political actions; they have no choice. Israel has been given a shock, and Netanyahu political breathing space from the Israeli population who were protesting his government's weakening of the judiciary and the Supreme Court. But as many others have said, there can be no normal ever for Israel while it still persecutes Palestinians and continues its apartheid policies.
Kerry Vernon, New Lambton
Eraring's time has passed
AUSTRALIA'S energy regulator is right - we must rapidly increase our firmed renewable energy capacity. Under no circumstances should the Minns government be using public funds to keep Origin Energy's Eraring coal-fired power station open beyond 2025. Instead, spending should focus on increasing the roll out of renewable energy and storage and supporting a TAFE New Industries Training Centre in the Hunter region to deliver the workforces of the future. The Australian people, our health and our environment cannot afford to prop up polluting power stations such as Eraring any longer.
Amy Hiller, Kew
Race disgrace came before referendum
VOICE supporters are worried about how Australia will look on the world stage after a 'no' vote. I know how we look after allowing the disgraceful display of anti-Semitism on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, rejoicing in the carnage unleashed on innocent families, the elderly, women and babies in Israel last weekend. It was shameful.
Maree Eggleston, Merewether
No easy answers to close gap
The Newcastle Herald's recent editorial ("If you don't know, take the time to find out", Opinion, 12/10), was in the main well balanced in its comments. However, its final summations abandoned that in my view. It stated: "if 'yes' prevails a new chapter in our nation's story will begin to be written" and "if 'no' prevails all the problems that currently afflict First Nations peoples - including the issue of reconciliation- will still need to be dealt with''. Putting aside the outcome of the referendum, Indigenous problems were always going to be with us for many years to come and reconciliation is a two-way street. Our nation's chapter is our constitution. It symbolises equality and did not need changing.
John Cooper, Charlestown
Time to live in the present
Robert Coombs ("The message behind 'no' votes", Letters, 12/10), I haven't stolen or been a part of stealing anything. I'm getting sick of people like you blaming everyone for the wrongs of the past. It's time we all started living in the present.
Ken Stead, Lambton
Manipulation was a mainstay
MY 'yes' was for simple love and hope, supporting a positive adjustment to an outdated constitution. I believe some in the 'no' camp, without a case, deliberately caused innocent people to believe that "the Voice would make Australians judge others on the basis of race". How? Just by saying so! Tragedy is, some folk did actually believe it, without reading further. This was a referendum about confidence and education; about cynical elected MPs exploiting the lack of it, betraying their voters and shaming the nation.
Beverley Atkinson, Scone
Let's change the subject
THE majority of recent letters to the editor have been all about the Voice. Now the referendum is over, can we have some letters to the editor about something other than the Voice?
