Letters and short takes November 21 2023

CLIVE Jensen ("Questions arising over the feds", Letters, 17/11), and other critics of the current Prime Minister and federal government: since Albanese and his government came to office 18 months ago the government has put in place many things that have helped Australians.

Wages are starting to move upward, medicine and health has been made cheaper by different changes. The budget is in the black for the first time for many years, the $1 trillion debt has shrunk ever so slightly, but hasn't grown like it did under the former government with their various leaders. The former government and its supporters continually blamed debt left by the Labor government for all its financial woes, while continually adding to that debt.

Now they also attack the present leader for overseas travel. A lot of that travel is to mend bridges burned by former prime ministers. That aside, a close look at the international travel by former prime ministers Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison also show that Albanese has a very comparable amount of trips.

In my opinion, if it wasn't for the current opposition teaming with One Nation and other smaller parties to block anything Labor wants to do in the senate, the ruling party would have achieved a lot more favourable outcomes for the nation.

THE ongoing housing crisis has spawned many media articles, with almost all arguing that the crisis was the result of a supply problem and all we had to do was build more houses to meet the demand.

However, Leith van Onselen, the macrobusiness chief economist at MB Super, has provided a more realistic view, pointing out that in the past financial year our population growth was around 630,000 due to high immigration, but we built only 170,000 homes.

What is worse, construction is falling as building firms go bust amid the exploding cost of material and land. But even this doesn't give the full picture, because the construction rate does not include the impact of house demolitions, which were 114,323 in the five years up to 2021.

There have also been 134,000 homes damaged by weather events in 2020, including 5303 destroyed in NSW alone.

This toll is likely to increase as weather events intensify.

There is a very real prospect that regions of Australia - even some cities - will become uninhabitable due to water shortages, and that cities such as Darwin, Broome and Port Hedland will exceed the liveable temperature niche.

This would create a surge of internal climate refugees seeking homes in areas already short of housing.

SINCE the referendum result, there's been no shortage of advice from correspondents telling others to "stop whining" and "accept it".

It appears they think a democratic ballot is like a chocolate wheel; a winner takes the prize, with no further correspondence entered into.

That's not how it works. I accept the outcome of the referendum, in the sense I accept that the question put to the people failed to secure the support required by the constitution to be carried. However, I feel just as strongly now as I did before about voting 'yes'. Why wouldn't I? I also think the fight for the requests of Indigenous Australians set out in the Uluru Statement should go on. Why shouldn't it?

As much as assimilationists such as Tony Abbott and Jacinta Price might argue otherwise, the referendum result didn't rewrite our history, or repudiate the true status of Indigenous people in this land. It was, and is, their country. It was invaded and they were dispossessed of it without compensation and thousands were murdered on the way through.

They are right to claim the legitimacy of their ownership, and everything that should morally and legally flow from it.

Far from fading away, I hope they become even louder and more assertive in pursuing justice.

SCHOOL children taking the day off to protest about this climate rubbish? Who puts these ideas in their heads? The last people they should listen to is this Labor government spreading hysteria. China has hundreds of coal-fired stations (and builds more weekly), with India not far behind. We contribute less than one per cent. So protesting is a waste of time, for whatever we do means zero to the world's temperature.

TOO right Clive Jensen ("Questions arising over the feds", Letters, 17/11). I think we all miss those days of responsible leadership in this country when 'Jen and the girls' worked their magic for us while their old man cooked curries, built cubbies and took on five ministries in the background.

CLIVE Jensen ("Questions arising over the feds", Letters, 17/11), you must have been out of the country or asleep during the Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison wasted decade.

GREAT stuff. West Group takes $1 million made from poker machines and gives it to the NRL club it already owns? Don't you think it could have been better used?

GREAT game, A-League Women Jets. The referee was simply atrocious.

IT is understandable Peter Dutton wants laws to punish the released detainees, people who have served their time. Like many who loudly profess Christianity, I believe he has little knowledge of forgiveness or redemption, especially where political opportunism is possible. The national embarrassment is that Labor acquiesced so quickly with legislation bound to be judged unconstitutional. Who is next?