Odds are growing longer we'll ever actually see true gambling reform

More than a year ago you received the unanimous report from the parliamentary committee, chaired by the late Peta Murphy, and despite promises to her in her final days that you would take action on this crucial social reform, we are still waiting. Is the gambling lobby so powerful that you cannot take the first step and implement the committee's recommendations? How long must we wait?

THOSE opposing renewable energy generation using wind turbines need to ask themselves about the alternatives. Greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut quickly and deeply if we are to have any chance of keeping climate change within the boundaries for safe life on earth.

Both fishing and tourism will be affected much more severely from global warming than from generation of electricity using wind. European countries have been safely using this technology for over 20 years. Nuclear energy works well for those countries with large and dense populations, big manufacturing centres and an existing nuclear industry. For a country like Australia, with none of these things and abundant renewable energy resources, it would not be rational to adopt nuclear energy, not least because it is by far the most expensive method of electricity generation available. While waiting for nuclear energy to be implemented, our greenhouse gas emissions would be rising exponentially if we, at the same time, curtailed the roll-out of renewable energy.

We owe it to ourselves to seek out credible information about new electricity generation methods and not rely on scare campaigns and social media, the authors of which often have their own agenda.

YOUR correspondent ("Don't hold a candle for renewables", Letters, 26/6), has provided point-in-time data to support his claim that renewables aren't currently sufficient to meet our electricity needs. I think we all know that.

However, electricity generation from renewable sources is already much higher than when this government came to power in 2022 after 10 years of denial and inertia by the previous Coalition government. Just imagine where we would be now if the Coalition had supported a carbon price, and if those ten years had been devoted to the roll-out of renewable energy infrastructure.

Now the Coalition is proposing that nuclear reactors are the answer. If your correspondent takes the time to examine that proposal he will learn that nuclear reactors are extremely expensive to build, that large-scale investors are not interested in putting their money into nuclear, and that countries like Britain, France, Norway and the USA are experiencing enormous cost-blowouts and construction time overruns in their nuclear projects. Also, many countries including China are increasing their uptake of renewable energy exponentially.

Yes, we are dragging the chain on renewables but we have no alternative other than to press on. The term "climate emergency" is not an exaggeration. Bipartisan support for renewable energy, not nuclear, is what is needed to confront this emergency.

WHILE Peter Dutton has shot himself in the foot with his failure to provide costing details for his proposed nuclear proposal, it would be useful to question if providing cost estimates would have benefited his cause. We are, after all, in an era of cost blowouts of herculean proportions as demonstrated by the Snowy 2.0 costs which have blown out from $2b to $12b. This was due to drilling problems, perhaps avoidable if more preparation work had been done, and compounded by the rising cost of materials. The latter is an issue that blights all projects be they wind turbines, nuclear power stations, or nuclear submarines.

Nuclear submarines have been given a first estimated cost of $368b which is before blowouts which will occur because building (and maintaining) these complex weapons is proving difficult even for the US. It doesn't help that a previous Labor minister said that the Australian submarine corporation couldn't build a canoe. Whatever the cost, we will have to pay for them with exports including the 116 new coal oil and gas projects expected to begin production before 2030.

I'm reading an autobiography at present written by Hazel Hawke. There is a photo in the book with a caption reading "Launching a campaign against domestic violence, Canberra, 1989." So what has been achieved since 1989? Still talking. Sorry Hazel.

Quite interesting that while the government is on the bandwagon of demanding costings and timeframes for Peter Dutton's nuclear proposal, that they themselves haven't released any about renewables and especially with the planned offshore wind farms proposals? It's not the opposition's responsibility to produce any information, they aren't in power, even though an approximate costing for nuclear power is easy as it's in at least 40 countries around the world.

A recent letter in the Herald was very misleading ("It's not so unfamiliar after all", Letters, 25/6). It inferred that microwave ovens use nuclear energy. That is wrong. Microwave ovens use electromagnetic radiation to heat food. The non-ionizing radiation used by a microwave does not make the food radioactive. Microwaves are only produced when the oven is operating. The microwaves produced inside the oven are absorbed by food and produce the heat that cooks the food. The radiation used by microwave ovens is perfectly safe and that short letter did nothing but add misinformation to the issue.

CAN anyone tell me how to sue God? I am freezing waiting for global warming.

WHAT a great image Barney Langford created with his reference to the poor old Canutes ("'Coal-inspired Canutes' miss mark", Letters, 27/6). Desperate to believe king coal and plutonium Pete's fantasies.