Watching the State of Origin the Knights fullback played like his coach Billy Slater and got the rewards and praise. On the weekend he played for the Knights, but not like he played on Wednesday.
Maybe his job as captain makes him feel he has to be in everything and everywhere but he is much more effective if he played like Billy Slater as he did in Queensland.
Maybe his coach could relieve him of his captain's duties and get him playing like a great fullback he can be as he demonstrated on Wednesday night.
Frank Ward OAM, Shoal Bay
COVID a factor in job numbers
JENNA Price notes that in office, Labor has changed its tune. New Health Minister, Mark Butler is playing an old card, "the previous government's financial mess means that we have to do this", in respect of not reinstating pandemic leave entitlements. "Anyway, I am only following the advice of health experts". Really? ("Terrible excuses testing patience", Herald, 15/7).
Scott Morrison tried to sell his line about "jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs". Now, the latest unemployment figures have come in at 3.5 per cent of the active workforce. Further interest rate rises and the federal budget restraint will now be necessary to reduce CPI rises to the RBA's target 2-3 per cent. Unless the economy is managed carefully, Australia could be in for a "hard landing" recession with all the misery that this entails.
At 3.5 per cent, the unemployment rate is ostensibly the lowest since 1978. But is it really? Are we comparing apples to apples? In 1978 we didn't have heavily indebted people being forced to work two or more casual jobs just to make ends meet. In 1978, the definition of 'full time work' was different to what it is in 2022. ABS statistical definitions have changed.
Casual workers and 'contractors' now make up the majority of the workforce. With the end of pandemic leave entitlements, these workers will now have an invidious choice. Go to work infected and spread COVID far and wide, or pay for COVID testing, and if infected, stay home and receive no pay, and put no food on the table.
Unless the federal government restores pandemic leave entitlements, and makes COVID testing free and widely available, the virus has won. It mutates quickly and evades our immune response.
The pandemic leave entitlement is an economic policy measure as well as a health measure. With or without economic policy designed to curb demand, if this entitlement isn't restored, we can expect to see a lot more supply chain shortages, gaps on supermarket shelves and price hikes.
Geoff Black, Caves Beach
Let's be realistic about the war
ARE we sleepwalking into war? This has been the case many times. In Ukraine's situation I think it's more a collective illusion, with little realism. Most in the Western world have convinced most of us that Vladimir Putin is Russia; only his views are relevant, that he is a dictator that few in Russia agree with.
We were regularly informed that Navalny was his principal opposition; a man not even in their parliament. Putin's only serious competition is with the Communists at about 15 per cent. Putin, for some 20 years, held 85 per cent. Now our experts may claim that this is rigged; none have come up with a viable opponent or any sign of a change. We can assume that the powerful and the army go along with this and supports him.
Inheriting The Red Army traditions and very advanced military technology, particularly in rocketry and years of space involvement, represents a huge factor. If anyone else took over in Russia that would not change. They have been involved in the eight-year civil war in the Donbass, Russian supporters nearly all. Some 14,000 killed. To suggest that the Russian invasion was unprovoked is just stupid; the takeover of Crimea proves that; near nil resistance.
We were well informed that Russia was mounting a force to invade; the Russians believing that Ukraine, with US and NATO help, were about to finish the separatists' insurrection. There was no surprise about their ''special military operation''; only confusion. An example was the 65,000-strong army moving into Ukraine, viewed from satellites. We were told this was moving to Kyiv. It never was, it was going to the Donbass regions. Kyiv was invaded briefly by an air group who soon departed or was destroyed. This may have been a ploy; US Intelligence predicted that Russia would try to take Kyiv in just two days. How, nobody suggested.
Total air control has not meant total bombing of Ukraine. No rail, power, bridges or roads, only military supplies (with collateral damage, no doubt). If, as is now almost assured, Russia or Ukraine expand this war, major loss of civilian life will result. It is not sleepwalking, it is the inevitable result of the usual, preferred illusions. This war has only just started; it will take realists to stop it.
Fred Whitaker, Newcastle
Flood of work to prevent river rises
YOUR correspondent Peter Devey, ("Climate narrative 'catastrophic'", Letters, 15/7), declares, ad nauseum, that the "big lie" of human-influenced climate change does not stand up to scrutiny of so much "contradicting evidence". Now he is trying to tell us that because there was flooding in the Hunter catchment in the 1950s the climate hasn't changed. He overlooks a couple of factors: Glenbawn Dam, which until recently successfully limited Hunter River flows, wasn't operational until after the 1950s flooding. In addition, since that time hundreds of millions, perhaps into the billions, of dollars has been spent on flood mitigation works. That is now proving to be less than effective in light of changing weather patterns. No doubt flood modelling was done before the Gillieston Heights development was approved less than 20 years ago but that modelling is clearly no longer relevant.
And Mr Devey keeps trotting out the names of climate-change-denying "experts" who are unqualified, discredited - or dead. A short time ago he even cited the "Oregon Petition", a 115 word, 25-year-old plea to US President Bill Clinton to reject the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a petition that has been shown to include fake names (Charles Darwin, Star Wars characters), unqualified signatories (including 9000 engineers) and in fact only 39 climatologists among the alleged 31,000 signatories. But he persists like, to use his own words, a "three-year-old who only thinks on a shallow emotional level".
John Ure, Mount Hutton
Forget 'debate', we need ambition
SADLY, climate policy seems to be continuing its role as a political football ("Greens need to get real on climate", Herald, 15/7). Although 43 per cent emissions reductions by 2030 is not nearly enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, Australia does need a reasonable legislated baseline 2030 target as a foundation to provide clear direction for business and industry. Incorporating a 'ratchet mechanism' to enable increased ambition over time seems a sensible facilitator of further ambition. Our leaders must find consensus that allows the debate to shift toward policy implementation that will activate a determined, co-operative, whole-of society effort to rapidly reduce our emissions this decade. Future generations are depending on us to start kicking some climate goals.
Amy Hiller, Kew
SHORT TAKES
WE talk about damage to Cooks Hill Surf Club due to recent storms in the area, and while I am agreeable with remedies to fix access, I do wonder where Stockton beach is in this argument. Stockton beach has been inaccessible for quite a long time. The buck is being passed between Newcastle council and state government.
Tony Morley, Waratah
IN Friday's real estate section of the Herald there is a property for sale in Zaara Street which lays claim to being located in Newcastle North. Does that (potentially) make me richer or poorer?
Les Brennan, Newcastle East
IT must be so frustrating for Michael Hinchey, (Short Takes, 14/7), to know all the fancy words but not be able to get realists like Greg Hunt and Steve Barnett to swallow your arguments. Maybe try humour and common sense, that's their language.
Dave McTaggart, Edgeworth
WAS it actual carnage or poor tackling technique causing players to be replaced early in the State of Origin decider? A lot of the basics have been lost in rugby league. Got to keep the TV stations happy.
Bruce Cook, Adamstown
I WOULD love to see the number of people in NSW in full time employment over (fraction) those of working age in NSW (not the young nor the retired) expressed as a percentage. That would be your employment rate and would be more meaningful than the unemployment figures now used.
John Pritchard, Blackalls Park
PLEASE, please David Klemmer, so you reckon you're hard done by? You're on $800,000 a year and decide to fire up and have a go with two minutes to go. Go back and watch some tapes of Harragon and Butterfield and try to emulate them. And by the way David, they never ran backwards like you do.
Brett Scott, Cessnock
GRAEME Tychsen is accurate in his description of Vladimir Putin as a butcher. However I think we also need to acknowledge that if we're going to hold people like Putin to account for war crimes, then we in the west need to acknowledge that George W Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard are still yet to face justice for the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Peter C Jones, Rathmines
THE California government compiles a list of "worldwide scientific organisations that hold the position that climate change has been caused by human action". This list includes more than 220 academies, from the Academy of Sciences of Canada to the World Meteorological Organisation. Meanwhile, Peter Devey froths around with his weird scientific denialism, like an old malfunctioning lighthouse that now serves no purpose.
