Wasted opportunities
Should John Barilaro adhere to his primary stated objective for entering politics, i.e. standing for, "A more prosperous healthier and happier Monaro", now, as deputy premier, he will now have less excuses for non attainment.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
With his boss, former HSBC investment banker, Premier Mike Baird, Barilaro is admirably placed to relieve the lot of "the less fortunate in our community", which he espouses. He and Premier Baird could make a start by generating employment. Work is the pathway, the primary avenue, to earning a wage, creating feelings of self-worth, dignity and social acceptance. Workers pay taxes, as distinct from corporations, and obligatorily consume.
Consumption has a multiplier effect, creating more employment. Despite the pejorative terms (e.g. bludger, cadger) applied to unemployed most people prefer employment to charity.
Charity may make benefactors feel good but does little for the self esteem of the beneficiary.
Baird, in common with federal counterparts, seems to have his sights set on privatising, everything, unless it is outsourced or off-shored. In-house, the Baird government justifies employing 457 visa holders to fill 32 full-time jobs in Service First. This may be a relic of the wrecking of TAFE by Barilaro as skills minister, when he sold campuses and "downsized" staffing.
Then there's the $2.3 (plus maintenance facility, $3.9) billion off-shored contract to manufacture and maintain inter-city trains with South Korea's Hyundai-Rotem. When Essential Energy was sold local jobs disappeared, a process being repeated by Origin.
Politicians can be trusted to save their own jobs. Everyone else, well...!
Albert M. White, Queanbeyan
Container deposits
Shane Rattenbury (ACT government) is correct to recommend moving quickly to align with NSW in implementing a container deposit scheme from July 1, 2017.
The scheme in NSW plans to have only a limited number of depots. This means any town missing out on a depot, will suffer economically as people and groups will travel to receive the refund, then spend money outside of their home town, more so than they would previously have done.
I have recommended NSW councils to lobby for every local government area to be given the opportunity to establish a container refund depot.
Matt Ford, Crookwell
Beggars belief
The possibility that the Turnbull government may give up to a billion dollars to the Adani Carmichael coal mine beggars belief.
Who knows why the Turnbull government would consider such an insane idea, except to appease Cory Bernardi and George Christensen. They obviously don't care about the Great Barrier Reef and global climate change.
I have an alternative suggestion for the billion dollars – invest it in science for the future. Townsville could have $10 million to build up its CSIRO research into mosquito control, Armidale could have $100 million to build up its CSIRO research into agriculture and plant biology, creating jobs and avoiding the transfer of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority there.
Melbourne and Canberra CSIRO could have $100 million each to rebuild climate and air quality research, $100 million could go into CSIRO Zika and other viruses research, $100 million could go to endangered species recovery programs, etc, etc.
There'd be some left for employing more nurses.
The opportunity cost of handing over this money to an outdated destructive technology is unacceptable. The money should go to socially productive jobs, not jobs that will contribute to destroying the Great Barrier Reef, our climate and Queensland tourism jobs. Kathryn Kelly, national convener, Friends of CSIRO