Newcastle Herald letters to the editor and short takes: Wednesday, November 13, 2019

I believe reducing teaching staff is to reduce the services to students. The students who graduate each year contribute to our communities in many ways. They provide an educated and skilled approach to addressing problems that emerge.

A university is a place of learning, of research, of discovery. A university is part of a community; it contributes to and receives from the community. A strong university is a strong asset for effective community development.

I think the current proposal to reduce staff is concerning, and the resulting casualisation of teaching staff at this institution promotes insecurity for staff and students. Staff do more, students receive less. In effect, our communities are diminished because the resources we once expected to be in place are no longer available.

Solutions could be additional government funding and borrowing funds. To reduce staff and rehire them later as casuals seems backward looking. Such approaches render the academic skills of university staff a commodity to be traded and dispensed with when the market dictates. To reduce academic endeavour to such assumptions in my opinion devalues what a university does and what a community is.

My friends say the view from the university building is wonderful. A new vision for dealing with issues, perhaps, would be more appealing.

AS I write this letter, I think I can smell smoke. I imagine I can see a dark plume hovering above the stretch of bush not far from my house.

As I look, I see flames leaping into the air and others joining them until they all explode into a wall of fire before my eyes. The reality is that I am safe inside, thinking of all those who have heard the roar that has been likened to a steam train or tornado racing full pelt towards them. I cannot imagine what that is like, but I know it must be terrifying because when you hear it you know that your life could end along with the lives of your friends, neighbours and animals. For most of us here in Australia, the bush is on our doorstep. We are privileged to have green belts everywhere and large areas of bushland around and between towns. Because of the long dry spells, these areas are tinder dry. What has been happening up north can so easily happen here. The situation is explosive.

My deepest sympathy goes to all who have been affected by the fires. My thoughts are with you in your grief and loss. Let no-one be complacent.

IN a nation that has always suffered from catastrophic bushfires, memories seem to be getting shorter and shorter.

I believe the current fires are nothing compared to the Black Thursday fires of 1851, which contemporary accounts note burned 25 per cent of the Victorian land mass to the ground, killing over 1 million sheep and a dozen people.

Temperatures of 47 degrees in the shade were recorded, and a Captain Reynolds quoted in The Argus reported his ship coming under burning ember attack 20 miles out to sea. With climate change now in my opinion being blamed for a combination of poor hazard reduction, housing developments in bushfire-prone areas and arson, I think it is timely to cast our minds back further than the past 12 months when deciding what is "catastrophic".

I HAVE just spent the last few days bike riding in Sydney. Every toilet we visited, even in the middle of nowhere, had soap, toilet paper, dryers, and was very clean.

It was very different from Newcastle, where we sometimes don't even have the basics at our main beaches.

I BELIEVE that Tom Randall (Letters, 11/9) is quite wrong when he says that the republicans are asking us to vote to become a republic without knowing what form that republic will take.

The leading proponent for the change is the Australian Republic Movement, and it has defined with great clarity how it believes an Australian republic should work and what the process for change should be. Its proposal is that the monarch and the governor-general be replaced by a head of state who is an Australian citizen and whose powers are the same as those of the present Governor-General. Everything else stays as it is. Whether the head of state will be elected by the people or by Parliament would be decided by the people as part of the change process. In my opinion, that there will be a referendum is not a "cop-out" as suggested by Mr. Randall. The Constitution cannot be changed without one and we cannot become a republic without a change in the Constitution. So it seems to me that there are very few unanswered questions after all, and that it is quite untrue that we "have no idea what we are going to get".

MY opinion piece calling on the Morrison government to restore the $11.8 billion it has cut from foreign aid in six years ('Our nation must lift its game on foreign aid', Opinion 6/11) caused some concerns.

In response to Geoffrey Brown (Short Takes, 11/11), I was not arguing that we should help other countries before our own. The Australian government will spend $4 billion on foreign aid this year (private individuals will give another $1 billion) compared with $32 billion on defence, $36 billion on education, $82 billion on health, and $180 billion on social security and welfare. I would suggest all these essential services have fared better under Labor governments than Coalition ones.

In response to Carl Stevenson (Short Takes, 9/11), Australia no longer provides development assistance to China. Australia provided $1.4 billion in aid to China from 1979 to 2017, and in 2018 alone Australian goods and services exports to China were worth $136 billion.

In fact, 10 of Australia's top 15 export markets today are countries to which we once provided foreign aid.

It is clear that development assistance helps poor countries grow faster, creating new markets for Australian exports.

Even if you are unconvinced by the humanitarian argument, there are very strong economic and national security grounds for foreign aid.

MICHAEL McCormack said connecting climate change to bush fires is just the ravings of city greenies and lefties. Does Mr McCormack ever listen? Scientists have long told us climate change causes the frequency and intensity of adverse weather events to increase. If you want to hear "ravings", Mr McCormack, why not listen to yourself?

WRINGING hands and shaking heads will do nothing for the future of the Labor Party. The election was Labor's to lose and, if that was an electoral promise, Labor would have come through with flying colours. Already unable to define their policy direction, we are seeing the formation of a party of contradiction and conflict. Taking so long to even asses their failure, Labor has shown its inability to rise to new challenges. Climate change, zero wages growth and a flat-lined economy should have been a gift for Labor. Instead, the gift was given to Scott Morrison.

I'VE been having a bit of a chuckle lately at some people who voted against the Labor party for their own reasons at the May election. Now it seems they are not happy with the governing of the country by the people who got elected. It seems they now blame the Labor Party for the way the country is being governed, because the Labor Party didn't win the election.

FOR years homeowners have installed solar panels to give them power bill relief. The key term here is 'homeowners'. As a landlord, I can see little reason to provide power bill relief for tenants. It leaves me to wonder how our country ever got into a position whereby we fail to take care of the 30 per cent of the population who are renters.

I DESPAIR of the greenies ever learning common sense. They insisted that the back-burning and the clearing of fire trails be banned, and just look at the result. Conflagration, deaths, destruction of property, livestock and native fauna. Of course they will bleat on about climate change, but I dare any of them to say that face to face with any of those who have lost it all.

GEOFF Black (Letters, 11/11), your summary of the new climate world now drying, once subtropical, southeast Australia topped by explosive wildfires, is perfect. This has happened in a short time.

MAYBE the powers that be need to refer to the 1961 science fiction movie The Day The Earth Caught Fire for some clues as to what to do now. No, I am not trying to be funny, just terribly concerned as to what is going to happen since we are in uncharted waters here. I drove through it last week, and it was like driving into hell. Can it get much worse?

WIN, lose or (hypothetical) draw, there's no doubt about Ash Barty. She's all class. However long her top seed status lasts, she was a legend beforehand and will maintain that standing throughout her career.