Letters to the editor and short takes Friday May 15 2020

Will we see seating permanently rearranged to allow for social distancing, reducing seating capacity and lowering cost-benefit ratios of new public transport projects?

If public transport carrying capacity is reduced (especially in Sydney) then how can commuters continue to commute to work easily?

Will our roads be able to cope with potentially many more cars, and becoming gridlocked?

In my opinion one answer is to invest heavily in walking / cycling infrastructure. The UK is investing $3.8 billion in an ambitious plan to boost cycling and walking. Priority will be given for active travel on their roads, encouraging commuters who have taken up cycling and walking to carry on with these new habits post pandemic.

Can this work in Australia? Why not?

I AM disturbed at the judgement and often false accusations that lockdown has surfaced. My niece was shopping for her family of four, her parents who were in isolation as well as her grandparents in their 90's. She was labelled a panic shopper at the cash register. An elderly single mother was visited by her daughter in a regional area and dobbed into the police by a neighbour who wrongly judged the situation. Don't let COVID-19 polarise our community. Instead, celebrate the way Australia is handling this complex time.

The COVIDSafe app presents another potentially divisive conundrum. When I find myself in debate about whether one should or should not download the app, I sense a growing tension and judgement bubbling away. The downloaders are horrified that anyone could be so selfish in placing privacy ahead of the public safely, while the resistors dumbstruck that the downloaders fail to see the risks. I have made up my mind about whether to download or not. I have also made up my mind to keep that decision to myself.

WHILE reading John Arnold's tongue-in-cheek admonition of nurses for complaining about not getting a pay rise from the NSW Coalition government despite their enormous contribution to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic (Letters, 13/5), I was reminded of Paul Keating's 1992 summary of the federal Liberal party.

Mr Keating described it as "the party of primitives, throw-backs to the nineteenth century robber-baron capitalism, who's who believe that what we should do is make way for the wealthy because in their slipstream the rest will pick up something on the way through."

Admittedly, in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic the federal Coalition Government has copied much of Kevin Rudd's effective response to the global financial crisis, which was driven by Treasury Secretary Ken Henry's advice to "go hard, go early, go households".

They have certainly gone hard, throwing billions of dollars around. They did go early, although it has taken many weeks for the money to reach those who need it the most, possibly sending many small businesses to the wall. And they have gone households, with payments to families (similar to Rudd's response) and temporary payments to some workers and unemployed. But many people who have contributed to the economy missed out completely, and in a few months we will revert to the standard conservative dogma of leaving the poor to fend for themselves.

IN response to Dennis Crampton's letter (Letters, 13/5) I agree with his sentiments: Labor governments wouldn't have acted any better in this crisis.

Our current governments and authorities learnt absolutely nothing from the Diamond Princess quarantined in Japan. They allowed passengers to disembark from the Ruby Princess on March 19 with dire consequences. We read the majority of our communities' state that our Prime Minister, his government, and the NSW Premier are doing great jobs.

Here is my report card on our governments and authorities:

The NSW Health authorities failed miserably on March 19 in my view. There ere no COVID-19 tests or results, no temperature checks, allowing passengers to self-isolate anywhere in the world.

The AFP Border Force failed miserably on March 19, claiming they are not the health authority. Some would have no doubt contacted COVID-19 in my view, if they had processed passengers who were allowed to disembark in seven or eight minutes. It usually takes one to two hours to disembark an ocean liner in my experience.

Both the NSW Health Minister and the head of NSW Health remain in their roles. I believe our Prime Minister is ignorant that the AFP has also failed miserably, with no temperature checks as standard procedure at our airports during March.

Our communities are still suffering as a consequence of these failings through loss of lives, still being isolated, our economies failing and the ongoing loss of jobs. We leave our trust in the current Senate Inquiry. Good luck with that.

I WOULD like to thank all the television networks for showing all of the oldest movies and shows that they could find in their vaults during this time of isolation. It's just all rubbish, showing movies from the 1950s and '60s in black and white.

What is wrong with television these days? If you can't build a house, cook a cake, dance, sing, get married at first sight, marry a farmer or just be plain rude and bitchy to people, there just would not be any thing on television.

Maybe it's all part of the bigger plan to get everyone watching the likes of Netflix and other streaming services. Thank goodness for the ABC and SBS and their online playback services.

ACTUALLY Allen Small (Short Takes, 13/5), Thyssenkrupp successfully demonstrated running a German steel furnace completely on hydrogen in 2019. Nordic steel producer SSAB is planning to produce fossil fuel free steel, using hydrogen, by 2026.

There is a massive amount of research, development, and trials into the use of hydrogen, across a wide range of industrial processes, being carried out worldwide. Your dream is likely to become a reality sooner than you think. And, with its steel making history and abundance of renewable resources to provide cheap power, Australia is well placed to be a part of it.

MY father, who is 88 and a pensioner, had a COVID-19 test at his general practitioner visit about a week ago. He has just received a pathology bill for over $100. Surely this is a disincentive for people to get tested?

Susan Kane, Cardiff

ONE referee should be adequate to control most NRL matches, except obviously for Storm matches where in my opinion more eyes are needed ('NRL to proceed with one referee', Newcastle Herald 14/5).

I WOULD suggest that rather than offshore dredging to resolve, or at least partly resolve the issue with erosion at Stockton ('Sand hope', Herald 14/5), that Swansea Channel be given the full dredging it needs and take the sand to Stockton. In this way we end up with a positive outcome to two serious problems. Swansea Channel's clearing would greatly increase the use of Lake Macquarie, and Stockton beach would benefit greatly. If you ask me, it's a case of killing two birds with one stone.

I DIDN'T think the day would ever come when I agree with you, John Fear (Short Takes, 13/5). I do think life would be better if we got rid of the middle tier of government and abolish the states. They are just another snout in the tax trough, in my opinion.

PETER Hay claims that God was seen in Islington (Short Takes, 12/5), but obviously that would have been a false god. Everyone knows our Lord resides up in the clouds on The Hill.

AT least there's one good thing with this coronavirus: we are not being driven mad by the overseas phone scammers. They must be in isolation too.

THE plan to invest in Virgin Australia by the Queensland government will have a positive flow-on effect. The Liberal-National Party will get a boost in polling and when they gain government they call sell the investment portfolio, probably for a fraction of what it's worth.

I BELIEVE it will be the greatest injustice in the world today, if lucky dilettante countries like Australia and New Zealand have less coronavirus deaths than countries with citizens who have shown the pandemic more respect by being willing, or indeed eager, for every person in public to wear a mask for the greater good. I have never been more ashamed to be an Australian.

IT is time for the Hunter to refresh its thinking. The Grattan Institute's plan for green steel ('Hard target', Herald 11/5) is spot on. Both the giant German steel-maker Thyssenkrupp, and Sweden's SSAB, are currently demonstrating that it is feasible to run a steel furnace completely on hydrogen. Fossil-free steelmaking technology, with virtually no carbon footprint, is coming.