I object to Mr Dutton's plan to build nuclear reactors near Lake Macquarie or in the Hunter Valley.
Nuclear reactors generate various radioactive gases and particulates which they need to vent into the atmosphere to relieve pressure built up inside the reactor containment vessel. All such gases are carcinogenic radionuclides, including Strontium-90, Caesium-137, Iodine-131, Carbon-14 and Tritium, and they are a serious environmental and health risk for people living within 50 kilometres of nuclear plants.
This danger was confirmed by Cindy Folkers and Linda Pentz Gunter in a 2022 article in the prestigious British Medical Journal. It follows a similar finding in the 2008 KiKK study on leukaemia in young children living in the vicinity of German nuclear power plants.
I don't believe that residents living near coal power plants want their health and safety endangered by radioactive releases from nuclear reactors.
Kenneth Higgs, Raymond Terrace
Not every business is a gold mine
STAN Kiefer ("Kitchen heat isn't taxpayers' woe", Letters 4/6), asks why should governments be asked to prop up private enterprise. Well, the answer is that private enterprise props up governments through the taxes they are compelled to pay.
He says business should do "a prepared business plan". Maybe they should do, but when has government ever presented a business plan to voters before an election, or at the very least kept their various promises? Quite often their plan of promises turns out to be a litany of lies and failure to deliver.
The cost of labour is a major problem for small businesses but was not mentioned by Mr Kiefer. Many small business owners often end up working long hours for low earnings. There has been a 60 per cent increase in business insolvency from 2023 indicating that the "restaurants, cafes and coffee shops" that Mr Kiefer complains about might not be gold mines.
Peter Devey, Merewether
Transition's hard, but it pays off
PETER Devey ("Renewable rollout a costly failure", Letters, 1/6), suggests renewables are an on-going costly failure, and the roll-out program as being way behind schedule and unlikely to reach its target of 82 per cent of electricity consumption provided by renewables. Well, a decade or two of inaction under the federal Coalition has been the major contributor. The programs of the coal-rich states are certainly behind the program, and it is a massive transition process that is going to be costly. What Mr Devey could have mentioned is that renewables provided over 70 per cent of South Australia's electricity demand over the entirety of 2023. Over the transition, SA has gone from having the highest wholesale electricity cost.
All done with no blackouts attributable to renewable generation. It's far from being a failure, and there is no good reason other states can't do the same.
Richard Mallaby, Wangi Wangi
Fighting words may backfire
BY implying a link between Hilary Clinton's 2016 "deplorables" comment and Donald Trump's subsequent loss in the popular vote and overriding electoral college win, Greg Hunt ("Don't tar all Trumpists the same", Letters, 29/5), poses an interesting hypothesis.
In the 1964 words of Robert Kennedy, one fifth of the people are against everything all of the time. While I realise that such a quote and a thesaurus are likely not high on the reading list of the poorly-educated voters who Trump says he loves, it does help explain his hard core of supporters, that mix of the bigoted and self-unaware voters conditioned to believe every whacko conspiracy theory and lie they are fed and wilfully ignorant of every material fact social media feeds keep from them. It therefore seems ironic to me that pre and post Biden's overwhelming popular vote and electoral college win in 2020, Trump's ever more strident rhetoric about anyone who dares to challenge, correct, call to account, criticise or disagree with him, includes calling them "nasty "and "hateful". These are all synonyms for "deplorable".
So I am left to wonder: if Greg's "deplorables" election damaging hypothesis holds true, were Trump's equivalent words part of the reason he lost in 2020? And, if so, does the recent adding of "deranged" to his name-calling of those good and true men and women unfazed by his threats and bullying bode ill or well for his re-election chances I wonder?
Rod Stanton, New Lambton
Dissent over Gaza is not all bigotry
Josh Frydenberg has claimed Israeli intelligence saved many lives, but where was their intelligence on October 7, and with the mistakes they've made in their offensives in Gaza, killing humanitarian workers and women and children?
Antisemitism has nothing to do with the protests in Australia and around the world; it's the reckless actions of Israel. Other countries have condemned Israel for its actions, but are they being called antisemitic? Here we in Australia are urged by many, and particularly Sky News, to support Israel. If we don't, we're called antisemitic. They can't be serious.
Steven Busch, Rathmines
Migration's no scapegoat for all of our woes
Some think we should stop migration in an effort to solve the housing problem while our birth rates are historically low. We need around 150,000 migrants each year just to make up for our birth shortfall not counting the skilled migrants we need to solve the housing problem. It's the consequence of decades of neglect, not simply the present government or migration numbers alone.
Darryl Stevenson, Coal Point
Supply and demand must balance
WITH some difficulty in removing certain detainees from our shores, the Australian Bureau of Statistics' data shows unplanned mass migration here reached a record high of 100,000 in February 2024. In the meantime, housing construction approvals in February 2024 were just 12,520. Is it any wonder Australians are struggling to find a home? I believe increasing demand and a lack of supply is pricing them out.
John Cooper, Charlestown
Awaba House delay has dragged
LAKE Macquarie mayor Kay Fraser says that Awaba House was gutted by fire more than five years ago and is well overdue for reconstruction ("Lake council trims cash splash plan", Newcastle Herald, 3/6). Does council take out insurance on properties they own, and if so, why should it take this long to settle a claim? Do they self-insure? Either way, it seems a long time.
Ian King, Warners Bay
What's science in shot over shark
REGARDING the shark story ("Encounter buoys wind farm fears", Herald, 1/6): try a close encounter with 'just a surfboard'. I've had more than one. Some explanation of the science behind the assertion would be appreciated.
Mervyn McConnochie, Karuah
Weekend news is a winner
AS an avid news watcher on NBN I find the weekend news so much better. Can someone please explain to me why we have to have two news readers sharing the stories? It's very frustrating to watch.
