GIVEN China has now imposed 80 per cent tariffs on Australian barley and imposed import bans on four Australian abattoirs in an attempt to censure Australia for calling for an independent inquiry into the origin of the COVID-19 virus ('Beef ban hits farmers', Newcastle Herald 13/5), surely it's time for Australian industry to turn their backs on this Communist Authoritarian State before it's too late.
John Bonnyman (Short Takes, 12/5) reminded readers of the sale by BHP of pig iron prior to World War II to Japan. This incident in 1938 involved the Illawarra Waterside Workers refusing to load pig iron onto a Japanese ship. Then Bob Menzies, Australia's Trade Minister and Attorney-General, overrode the union and earned the nickname of Pig Iron Bob.
As Mr Bonnyman infers, history maybe repeating itself with BHP and Rio Tinto selling record tonnages of iron ore and metallurgical coal to China. If you intend fighting a war, steel is vital as the Japanese showed by launching a surprise attack on Pearl Harbour almost exactly three years after the Illawarra dispute. Given China needs our food and resources, I would like to see Australian farmers and miners divert our food and minerals to other overseas countries like the USA and UK where beef supplies, for example, are under threat from the virus.
China has slaughtered over 50 per cent of their pigs due to the African swine flu and they need to be reminded they do not control Australia and that Australia will not be bullied by an authoritarian dictatorship.
John Davies, Newcastle East
RED LIGHT ON GREEN STEEL
MONDAY'S front page article (`Steel city reborn with a green edge', Herald 11/5) puts a wonderful gloss on the production of steel using hydrogen as a reductant.
In 1996 BHP invested $2.5 billion on a similar plant at Boodari near Port Headland in the Pilbara, West Australia. It was closed and scrapped in May 2004 following an explosion that killed one and injured two others.
The process used a reductant mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide derived from natural gas (unpurified and cheap at the time).
It required high-grade fines with low impurities and produced soap bar sized briquettes of iron. The plant had good raw materials, export infrastructure and large sunk capital but still didn't survive.
These plants are required to run continuously and thus the hydrogen capability would need to be well oversized to allow for intermittent power generation.
The Grattan Institute might ponder who would make the investment required for such a vast project combining three distinct technologies?
Ted Burns, Eleebana
WE NEED A CRACK TEAM
I SEE what is happening when we lower our lockdown laws for COVID-19: people start acting like morons. Straight away, we get the me-me-me mentality.
Don't yell and abuse the workers in the supermarket stores when they ask you not to do certain things for your health. Do you realise those workers are in as much danger as you of getting the virus? How exhausted must our doctors and nurses and all the other frontline people be just to keep you safe?
Stop whining and do the right thing so we may again be healthy and happy. Also, think about the people living in tents because of those terrible bushfires who are still waiting for the government to hand out all the money that was raised by the Australian people.
I would like to see the government get rid of the back-patters who stand behind them patting their necks all day just to boost their egos. In their place, get some whip crackers to crack the whip when this government gets slack in handing out money they have promised. Also if they sit too long in their cosy offices, crack the whip.
Margrietha Owens, Cardiff
WE'RE NOT PLAYING ANYMORE
ROBERT Tacon (Letters, 8/5) can take umbrage to my narrative about followers of some football codes until the cows come home. You have clearly not comprehended my actual message.
It was not specifically about who supports what sports, and what they should be allowed to do. It is about obeying rules, which in the case I refer to, is drawing a long bow on adherence to COVID-19 rules.
It demonstrates the exorbitant amount of money these football codes are prepared to spend, so people like you can (nowadays) watch men or women chase each other around a paddock, knock the opponent with the ball to the ground, and when serious injury occurs, expect to be transferred to a hospital emergency at a time the whole world is trying to contain the worst pandemic in living memory.
Pat Garnet, Wickham
RESULTS SPEAK VOLUMES
WHEN questioned about her discussions with ministers Don Harwin and Andrew Constance, who had been the subjects of unfavourable headlines recently, Gladys Berejiklian made it quite clear that she would not reveal details of any private conversations. Mr Harwin subsequently resigned over a breach of the COVID-19 social isolation rules and Mr Constance lost his position as leader of the house over the Eden-Monaro byelection fiasco.
Franklin White (Letters, 11/5) reckons the premier showed remarkable signs of poor leadership by failing to adequately reprimand the two ministers. I might suggest that Mr White would have no idea what Ms Berejiklian said during private discussions about these matters. The fact that one man lost his job and the other was demoted indicates to me that there were likely very few compliments.
During the past few months all the premiers appear to have been working tirelessly for our benefit, as have our health professionals and a number of federal ministers. We are all entitled to our opinion, but I thought that Mr White's comments about our premier's leadership were fairly ordinary and unjustified.
David Stuart, Merewether
TRAIL IS PATH TO PROTECTION
IN response to Susan Simmonds (Letters, 11/5), my understanding of how the COVIDSafe app works is that should a person be standing next to another in a queue while both are well at that time. Then, when one of them has symptoms within a few days or say week later and is confirmed positive for COVID-19, the medical trackers then immediately phone directly all the people that had been in the vicinity of the sick person in the previous week or so and ask them to self-isolate and be aware that they are vulnerable to the virus. They then can be tested or just isolate and hope they have avoided it.
I think this app is certainly giving us the knowledge and awareness to do whatever it takes to avoid passing it on and surely that is a good thing!
Bev O'Hara, Hamilton
SHARE YOUR OPINION
Email letters@newcastleherald.com.au or send a text message to 0427 154 176 (include name and suburb). Letters should be fewer than 200 words. Short Takes should be fewer than 50 words.
SHORT TAKES
SO, the NSW Liberal government plans to reward the front-line heroes who have sacrificed so much and worked so hard to keep us safe during the current plague with a pay freeze. Why does this not surprise me? Kick down and kiss up is the return to normal for the ungrateful money hoarders.
Peter Ronne, Woodberry
WHEN pupils are given a laptop, are they taught to touch type? It is liberating not to have to look at the keyboard when entering ideas on their screen. Business colleges have well-tried methods of instruction in this regard. It is not necessary to introduce numbers and other symbols at first.
John McLennan, Charlestown
I CAN see the coronavirus spreading like wildfire again and it will be the fault of the world's most selfish and obnoxious city, Sydney. Why not enforce a six month total lockdown of Sydney, and Melbourne for that matter, and let the true Australians get on with life as normal? It's about time a new state was formed with the border being the Hawkesbury River to Queensland and Lake Illawarra to the Victorian border. Sydney leeches off the rest of NSW and Macquarie Street gives stuff all back, so let's give Sydney the boot.
Steve Barnett, Fingal Bay
WHO is the bright spark that came up with testing for COVID-19 at the mighty Knights' home ground car park ('Swab and go: 'mega' clinic opens', Newcastle Herald 8/5)? If people start turning up positive, there goes the stadium.
Mick Porter, Raymond Terrace
I READ that the NRL want to get rid of the second referee ('Referee reduction a step back: Klemmer', Herald 12/5). They may as well get rid of the bunker, too, and let us watch football the way it should be played.
John Keen, Gateshead
I WAS alarmed to read that cricketers may in future not be allowed to shine the ball. Blokes have for a couple of hundred years been shining the cricket ball on the front of their creams. Right hand side for shine, left hand side for a bit of pleasure.
Mike Sargent, Cootamundra
ALAN Jones is retiring. Some children are better seen, but not heard. Mr Jones was like a child who was heard, but rarely seen. While his words offended some, his face seemed kind. His voice was smooth, too. Venting his spleen at some politician seemed to be his speciality. Sadly, in my opinion, we never saw the kind side of a man weighed down by pointless, combative rhetoric.
John Butler, Windella Downs
WE don't need a scientific inquiry into the Murray Darling water problem; we need to scrap water-buying schemes and let it run naturally. Why should foreign entities control our distribution of water to our farmers?
John Bonnyman, Fern Bay
WHILE everyone is praising our wonderful health workers, our true heroes, the John Hunter Hospital charges them parking fees to come to work. Surely these people deserve some benefits such as free parking.
