Letters and short takes May 22 2023

I get it, JobSeeker at $350 per week is not much to live on. But as low as welfare payments are, welfare still takes the lion-share of the budget in this country.

Who pays for that welfare?

Ms Price doesn't answer or even ask that question. Why not? People on the political left often aren't worried nor do they care about that; just print more money, I guess. But that money comes from the taxpayers, middle Australia, who work for a living and get taxed for everything the government wants to spend money on. Inflation is eating away at the real worth of our taxable incomes, but I can't see what the government is doing to reduce the cost of living and/or inflation. They are going to drop the Low and Middle-Income Tax Offset just as people are feeling the effects of inflation.

There is nothing being done to encourage business activity or efficiency. They're increasing the tax on tobacco (hits the poor), hitting farmers with a biosecurity tax (they don't vote for the ALP), increasing tax on the trucking industry (that will increase costs of most goods) but what are they doing to help middle Australia? Middle Australia is a term the prime minister and many of his ministers have been saying a lot lately, but it looks more like they are just giving us the middle finger.

THE review and proposed changes to the ammonium nitrate (AN) storage distances by Safework NSW is welcome ('Stockton's explosion risk', Newcastle Herald 16/11). The location of up to 12,000 tonnes of AN stored at the Orica AN factory has been a major concern for the community. The changes proposed by Safework NSW would bring the NSW regulations closer to WA's regulations.

While the risk of an explosion has a very small probability, the outcome if that happened is truly catastrophic as seen in the Beirut explosion which had much lower AN stored volume than at Orica in Newcastle and while the risk is small it is never zero. The solution to avoid such catastrophic outcomes is to reduce and/or moving volumes of AN stored in Newcastle.

We note these changes would mean the storage volumes of AN at the Orica plant would be reduced to 200 tonnes requiring storage of the AN produced at the plant to be off-site well away from communities. A purpose made storage facility for the AN produced closer to the coal mines in the Hunter Valley with appropriate security would be a much safer result for the Stockton and Newcastle community and be well away from major Port infrastructure.

Newcastle is likely the world record holder for the amount of AN stored close to a city centre and it's time this changed for the benefit of everyone.

I AM so pleased the Herald has recently run some articles on the increasing cost of living and the effects on the people of the Hunter, in particular the increasing cost of electricity. We have been lectured about how wind and solar are our only hope of reducing our power bills and being Green, but I say renewables are the dearest form of power we can have. Our bills are living proof. While what they produce when they produce it is cheap, what is not cheap is the cost of setting it up and its unreliability.

Fact is, over the past decade Australia has installed wind and solar at four times the rate of any other nation on our planet and yet we are still seeing price rises to the point we have the dearest energy in the world. Fact is, wherever a nation has gone down the renewables path their power bills have increased. For the approx. $300 billion plus, we have spent on Green energy over the past 10 years we could have built base load nuclear power plants be they full blown plants or small modular reactors. We would have pollution free, green base load power.

If you think your energy bills are bad now, wait until we have to rewire the nation. According to the CSIRO we will need to spend $1 trillion to rewire the country to cope with the increased use of wind and solar in our energy grid. Lord knows how many nuclear plants could be built for that.

We as a nation need to make a choice. Do we want manufacturing? If we want cheap reliable energy that our elderly pensioners, our disadvantaged and our working class middle income earners can afford then we need nuclear or coal fired power plants.

Please note I've not bagged the current Federal Government for the rising cost of power nor the skyrocketing cost of living because every federal and state government over the past 20 years is responsible for our current predicament. All need to accept responsibility.

The other comment sure to come is where are we going to put these plans. The answer is simple: offer everyone who lives near or any manufacturing business prepared to set up near to a nuclear plant free energy for life. If you don't think people would live near a nuclear plant, have a look at the overseas lived experience and how readily people will. On a smaller scale, look at the Lucas Heights nuclear plant 40 years ago. It was in the middle of nowhere, now there are homes backing up to the plant's boundary fence.

IT'S bemusing to see Steve Barnett spit the dummy about ABC "bias" while admitting he doesn't even watch it (Short Takes, 16/05). Steve fails to submit any examples of this 'bias' and he seems unaware that multiple inquiries have found the ABC to be politically impartial. But I suppose that if someone was so far to the right that Genghis Khan looks like a greenie, anything remotely near the centre would look left-biased, especially if it regularly checked its facts.

Strange to say I have recently had a formal complaint to the ABC upheld, in which I named one of their right-leaning presenters for broadcasting straight-out climate denialist lies. The item was corrected online. Steve calls for the ABC to be defunded, presumably because he would prefer us to depend on the Murdoch media for our information, the people who just had to cough up a cool billion dollars because they actively lied and defamed people in a biased defence of Trump's big lie.

No thanks, Mr Barnett. Personally I prefer my media to be fact-checked and to correct its mistakes when they happen.

DAVE McTaggart (Short takes, 29/3), thankfully I've lived a relatively long life which has been mixed and varied. I know when to retreat from a situation that is complex, ugly and can't be settled by a couple of scribes writing letters to the Newcastle Herald. I am having difficulty accepting your theory that only a minority of First Nations people are struggling but thank you for correcting my lack of information regarding this topic, and I apologise by concluding I am the one "living under a rock".

I am open to correction. Thank you, Julie Robinson, for writing in support of my inadequate attempt to "close the gap" without delay between First Nations People and the invaders.

THE editorial ("No overnight fix for long-term dispute", Opinion 16/5), rightly suggests that our relationship and trade with China may take years to normalise. I don't see anything positive in Chinese diplomats wearing expensive suits and welcoming smiles, apparently to put their hopeful visitors at ease. They know quite well we are suspicious of their future intentions and that we are spending billions of dollars on nuclear submarines to protect our sovereignty. It's unfortunate, but I don't think we'll be packing wine or lobsters for that part of the world anytime soon.

YEAR after year, constant false promises and rises in tax makes it obvious they really don't care for low paid Australians. The one question I would like to ask is how many decades does it take to get at least one thing right. Considering the extravagant wages we pay politicians, are we really getting our money's worth from these so-called Australians? They are the only Australians smiling of late. Absolutely no confidence in these muppets.

WHILE I am sure Geoff Black is well capable of speaking for himself, I find his contributions to Letters to be always topical, well researched and very well written. I may not always agree with his opinions, but I respect the work he obviously puts in and the manner in which he argues his points. People could do worse than follow Geoff's lead in how they go about putting forward their views. Thanks, and keep up the letters.

I VISITED Sharon Claydon's office and asked her to phone me so I could personally explain to her why the government should not proceed with the Voice referendum at this time and instead should first legislate The Voice. That would let Australians see how it would work in practice before asking us to put it into our constitution at a referendum.

SPORTING organisations speaking on behalf of players, employees, fans and volunteers on political matters such as The Voice need to be called to account. The AFL and NRL, for example; do these imbeciles who run these sports really think all of the players, supporters, volunteers and employees all think the same? Stick to sport, leave political activism and politics out of sports. Sport is an escape from all of this.

JULIE Robinson (Short Takes, 18/5) I'm only surprised Pat Garnet didn't cop more flak after inferring that if you don't support the Voice you're "clearly racist" considering outstanding Indigenous leaders like Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine are leading the "no" camp. I believe the true racists are those who wish to divide us according to skin colour.