NEWCASTLE'S NRL season kicks off tonight. As with all sport fans a new season, regardless of the fortunes of the last, springs with hope. A Knights fan since day one and a season ticket holder, I've been among the supporters enduring a very lean period in recent years, including wooden spoons.
What does the season hold: more mediocre outcomes, or one where the real potential of the squad is achieved? We have a squad that can truly compete for a top eight spot. We have a potentially champion spine, and the recruits look very sharp to add to our seasoned campaigners. We have amazing potential.
The key question remains - will we be celebrating a team that seriously competes every week, or looking for excuses again? It is time to seriously deliver on the promise we have. I would humbly suggest Mr O'Brien has eight weeks to show this promise.
Gerard Mowbray, Warners Bay
Super cash better spent elsewhere
SHOULD government, in view of changing economic circumstances, break its pre-election promises? Pre-election, Albanese promised to proceed with the legislated tax cuts. He also undertook not to tamper with Australia's superannuation laws. Now his government proposes to cut super tax breaks to those with superannuation balances exceeding $3 million.
The tax cuts would cost $11 billion in the 2023-4 budget, and $254 billion over the next decade. The money is there in one sense, since the budget deficit is $13.6 billion lower than expected. This is largely thanks to windfall tax revenue on exports as Mr Putin's war in Ukraine drags on. But the federal budget in 2023-24 is predicted to have a $36.9 billion deficit. The proposed super changes would have a piddling effect and should be off the table forthwith.
Cutting personal income tax is designed to restore fairness by stopping bracket creep. It is also designed to restore incentives to work and invest. But at present Australia has galloping inflation, in part caused by businesses' odious behaviour of profiteering and price gouging. At the same time people are doing it tough as interest rates rise and average real wages are going backwards.
The electorate might look more favourably on spending part of the $11 billion on beefing up the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) so it can police business behaviour. There are many types of administered price increases that are illegal, and more that are immoral. If the ACCC investigated, exposed and fined a few offenders, others would pull in their horns.
Geoff Black, Caves Beach
Voice matters, but is it urgent?
Don't mention the Voice! This subject would have to take the cake as the most divisive Punch and Judy show in recent memory, in my opinion. The passionate views of those for and against have just about been done to death, as far as I can see. Personally I think Albo is obsessed with getting the Voice up and running at all costs when there are much more important things he should, as prime minister, be concerned with. After all, the number of people who identify as Aboriginal is only about 3 percent.
Again let me say Albo and his government have more pressing issues to deal with at this time than being hell bent on promoting a yes vote for the Voice.
Ian King, Warners Bay
'Yes' vote must offer evidence
JOHN Ure, ("Cynical games won't decide Voice", Letters, 23/2), attacks those who oppose the Voice with a gratuitous attack on Peter Dutton. I believe attacking personalities rather than the issues is a typical tactic of the left. Mr Dutton made the mistake of apologising for his trivial non-attendance at the 2008 apology. Apologising to the left never works because they never accept it and then attack you even more.
I think there are a lot of things wrong with the Voice even apart from its inherently racist privilege (it would be a privilege for people of Aboriginal race only). Proponents should explain what evidence or reason they have that the Voice will improve the lives of Aboriginal people in any discernible way.
It is now 15 years since Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generation that had a nice nationally televised ceremony in Parliament House with a welcome to country (courtesy of Ernie Dingo), smoking ceremony, capes and the like. What has changed since then? Everything we throw at these problems seems to fail, but the response is to throw even more of the same at them. The Voice is looking like more of the same.
Proponents should explain how it would be better than the old ATSIC, which both sides of politics were glad to get rid of. Any change in the Constitution should be spelled out, word for word, before voting on it but we still do not know what any of those words will be. The Voice is looking more like a dog's breakfast than any progressive change to the constitution. Just vote no.
Peter Devey, Merewether
We can't lose hope in future
IN her recent letter, ("Let's look for ways to fix things", Letters, 28/2), Pat Garnet concludes by asking us to think of ways forward out of the terrible mess that we have wrought upon ourselves. My first thought is there is no way forward because we have tied ourselves into too many knots and time is running out. I do not want a doom-and-gloom future even though there is much to be morbid about. I see apathy, complacency, rampant materialism, disrespect and greed as our great enemies. These are what we fight against daily. We cannot save the world and this is the excuse many use when settling back into a life of eating, drinking and pleasure with no thought for surrounding urgent needs.
Letters pages of newspapers are one way of communicating dissatisfaction or protest and some lighter letters relieve tension. Thinking about the way forward I would say hope is needful and it won't be in leaps and bounds but in small sure steps publicly and privately. Nature and drops of kindness are a fuel. Motivating others is the challenge.
Julie Robinson, Cardiff
Balloons can have big downside
The fantastic news that Queensland is joining Western Australia in including a balloon release ban in its plastics policy is tempered by the fact that, as long as helium is easily available to the public, releases will still occur (National ban call as new state moves on helium balloons, Herald 24/2).
In the last four years there have been more than 20 illegal balloon releases that we know of, the vast majority in NSW. Like the ACT, this state and the ACT allow the release of up to 19 balloons without penalty. As a result, around 1000 balloons are now causing environmental harm.
Given the nature of balloon releases, compliance is rarely if at all applied. Too many times council officers have been reluctant (understandably) to fine grieving families. To stop releases at the source, as well as create uniform national balloon release bans, we need national regulation on the sale and use of helium for inflating balloons.
Karen Joynes, Bermagui
SHORT TAKES
I'M stunned that a stepfather convicted of sexually abusing a girl in his care, weekly from the age of four to 14, can receive such a minimal sentence ('Repeated abuse 'ruined my life', Newcastle Herald 18/2). A five year and six month non-parole period? I believe the DPP should lodge an appeal. It's a slap in the face for every victim, their loved ones, and the police who work so hard. Shame.
Jan Thompson, New Lambton
THE proposed changes to our super funds sounds an awful lot like the failed Shorten "Taxing the high end of town" election pitch a few years ago. I wonder if the pollies of all parties; federal, state and local ever consider the average workers when they check their own super funds. It's well known that the pollies do very well on taxpayer funded schemes. I don't believe it is a fair system when they can get access to their super from age 55 when our retirement age is increasing. Yes, there may be a few retirees who will have a lot of money in their funds, but it got there by hard work and not a closed system.
Greg Lowe, New Lambton
ARE the batteries for renewable energy going to be made here? I would hope so, but bet they aren't.
Tony Rathbone, Belmont
I WALKED up to see the Supercars track preparation and barricades being installed the other day. I was considerably taken aback at the lack of high fives being offered to the workers from the local residents. Perhaps the residents will be gathering at the Newcastle council chambers to have a cuppa and group hug with those councillors who support the event after it's over, and they are finally let out of their corrals. I do hope they won't experience dizziness as the fragrant exhaust emissions permeate the surrounding atmosphere.
Owen Keegan, Cooks Hill
INSTEAD of trotting out another defects list version of Aboriginal history, maybe Phillip O'Neil ('Open our eyes, ears, hearts and minds', Opinion 27/2) could explain to us why Labor is not legislating a Voice to Parliament and instead is forcing Australia to vote on it at a highly divisive referendum.
Clive Jensen, Merewether
THANK you Michael Gormly, (Short Takes, 28/2), for confirming that the "generous offer" of the Voice is really about compensation and paying rent. If only more Voice supporters were as honest. John Arnold, (Short Takes, 28/2), I called myself an "indigenous Australian", not an "Indigenous Australian". As for my "unrevealed ancestry", much of it is unrevealed even to me. Can I get the benefit of the doubt when it's time to "pay the rent"?
Peter Dolan, Lambton
CITY of Newcastle should be making money from the two new camping areas with scenic views from Nobbys and King Edward Park.
Tom McBeth, Shortland
WILL China, Russia, America and North Korea to name a few have to purchase carbon credits to offset the pollution from the upcoming nuclear war?
