The NSW budget expects approximately $3 billion in coal royalties to be received. Can those Greenies who haunt these pages explain where the taxes are coming from to replace this amount? Let alone the high-paying jobs.
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey proudly claimed that the Labor government has controlled government spending more than any other government in Australia since 2023. Does this person realise that since 2023 Australia has largely been controlled by Labor governments?
Pauline Hanson calls for Australia to be a monocultural society. According to the experts, a monocultural society does not exist; it is a myth. Every human being is different in many ways. A multicultural society is the pivot of all societies.
I am absolutely disgusted with the new news format on NBN. To my mind it is no local news, no local sport report and no local weather report. How did this happen? Surely something can be done to turn this mess around. This is no good for Newcastle.
Kerry Vernon ("Don't judge passengers so lightly", Letters, 25/6), my partner has told me a group were very anti-social, to put it politely. Their behaviour and language, vaping and presence made her uncomfortable. I don't know how to describe people like this. How would you describe them?
Thank you Peter McNair ("Latin lives on beyond Novocastrian", Letters, 24/6), for his reminder that Latin lives. As a Newcastle Girls High School pupil in the '60s, and taught by Mrs Rosa Brown, I still read Latin and am appalled it isn't taught today.
I think City of Newcastle councillor Siobhan Isherwood deserves credit for pushing council to do its business in the open, not behind closed doors ("Council backs public briefings, keeps workshops", Newcastle Herald 20/6).
Workshops are defended as a space for councillors to ask questions and get across technical detail before a proposal is ready for public view, but that's exactly Cr Isherwood's point. If asking those questions in public feels uncomfortable, that discomfort is the cost of transparency rather than a reason to avoid it.
Newcastle residents have asked for more transparency at two elections and through the independent Davidson review. They shouldn't have to ask a third time. The council's decision to review the policy is a start, but a review with no deadline and a workshop loophole still intact is a long way from "out of the shadows" in my view.
Transparency isn't a courtesy councils extend when convenient. It's the baseline we should expect, every time, on every issue that affects this city.
I read Rachael Sherrin's letter ("Pauline's policy advice from Rinehart a red flag", Letters, 24/6), with interest and had to smile at the image of politicians seeking policy advice from billionaires. It does raise an amusing question: when did the average Australian become so hard to find that political parties started outsourcing the job to the Forbes Rich List?
Pauline Hanson built much of her political career presenting herself as the person at the pub saying what everyone else was thinking. There's a certain irony if those thoughts are now arriving via executive boardroom and private jet.
That's nothing against Gina Rinehart. She's clearly done rather well for herself and probably gives excellent advice on iron ore, large machinery and the correct way to organise a cattle station the size of Belgium. But I'm not sure that automatically qualifies someone to decide what happens to pensioners, tradies, teachers and people wondering whether lettuce really should cost more than petrol.
Most Australians don't wake up and ask themselves, "What would a billionaire do?" Usually it's more along the lines of, "Can someone explain this power bill?"
Political parties are free to take advice from whoever they like, but voters are also free to ask whether that advice comes with a complimentary hard hat and a mining lease.
Representation is a funny old thing. If politicians want to claim they speak for ordinary Australians, perhaps they should occasionally take advice from one.
The debate has been over culture, mono or multi, but Australian culture is what we need to be debating. Current political rhetoric over the voice, anti-Semitism and radical Islam has become very divisive and politically motivated.
Our culture has evolved over the last 250 years and has evolved around "a fair go" for all, respecting our traditions and being available to accept changes brought by immigration. Of course in any definition, we are multicultural. The issue is how we managed different aspects of immigration from wartime to our current situation.
There's impact of our stagnating economy, the housing crisis at the front fuelling resentment, and the Bondi massacre lighting the fire. I believe the amount of immigrants, how they are distributed across the country, the resultant strain on infrastructure in addition to housing, transport, healthcare and education are the symptoms of a deeper cultural problem. Different rules for different people, and systems that are now starting to feel the pressure
Our overregulated personal and business taxation have reached levels amongst the highest in the world. When you add electricity prices and a highly regulated labor market, our rich country is becoming directionless.
The divisive political fragmentation, with the major parties now only collecting less than 50 per cent of voting intentions, comes with an emerging split of the ideology on multiculturalism and monoculture. It has become the new definition of left wing, right wing politics.
Unfortunately the social cohesion we all want has a long way to go.
It wasn't so long ago when the two major political parties had the electorate by the short and curlies.
There was no other viable political avenue to choose. It gave us all a strange peace of mind because we all knew we were going to be shafted and by who.
Today I sit with some trepidation as I have no bloody idea of what's around the corner.
I am somewhat confused as we have old foes like the Greens and Liberals forming alliances. To be fair the Libs really are desperate to remain relevant, doing deals with the Greens really is the epitome of desperation.
Meanwhile the redhaired dragon slayer's armies are massing, apparently just waiting to fill ballot boxes all over the country.
The future is indeed an unknown quantity. I look ahead with some trepidation.
