ABOARD the Awassi Express in 2017, thousands of sheep bound for the Middle East, died in their own waste in suffocating heat.
To prevent this happening again, the federal government banned shipments between June 1 and September 15 as it was clearly too hot.
This ban failed at the first hurdle.
In late May, this year, the Al Kuwait arrived in Fremantle to collect thousands of sheep for the Middle East. It was found that almost half the crew tested positive for coronavirus. The ship could not sail by the June 1 deadline.
MORE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
- Questions to be answered on broad plan
- It's beastly to make animals casualties for us
- Bin the spin and make what we waste clear
-
It's time traders made enforcing COVID-19 rules their business
The shippers asked for extra time and the request was refused by the Minister for Agriculture, who said the sheep could be slaughtered humanely in Australia and shipped as frozen boxed meat. A better outcome for the animals that would have faced a horrible journey to the Middle East and a cruel death.
The exporters, Rural Export and Trading WA made a fresh application to the Federal Court and the ban was overturned. Last week the Al Kuwait sailed quietly out of Fremantle with its cargo of misery.
So much for the ban. The minister failed to insist on his own regulation being upheld.
Olga Parkes, New Lambton Heights
Leave Joy out of it, Jeff
I APPLAUD you Margaret Badger for your words (Herald, 18/6). Jeff, you've just stirred up a hornet's nest.
Novocastrians respected Joy Cummings perhaps more than any lord mayor of our time and you are quite correct when you say that she cared for the community, listened to suburban voices and built policy around their needs.
Your succinct summing up of your mum and her achievements was a very worthy read.
Your mother would have been proud to read your words and any Novocastrian old enough to have lived here in our wonderful city at the time that Joy was lord mayor would understand your disappointment with Jeff Corbett.
On this one, I am definitely on your side.
Denise Lindus Trummel, Mayfield
Ridiculous to reward rule-breakers
WHAT a ridiculous concept, those on Centrelink payment would only get fined 50 per cent of any fines for doing the wrong thing.
What stupidity. Does this form of lunacy lead to reducing jail time for criminals? The laws are there for a reason, to punish those who do the wrong things, not reward them.
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I'm a pensioner and this 50 per cent reduction idea concept shouldn't give me the right to disregard road rules or at least be rewarded for breaking them.
How ridiculous. How about giving half the fine money collected from those who disregard the rules to the people such as owners of small businesses who have done the right things during this pandemic.
That would make more sense, eh?
Graeme Kime, Cameron Park
Thanks to our police officers
RESPONDING to the article 'Cop's eye socket fractured' (Herald, 23/6), I believe closing the various gaps, as espoused by the "Black Lives Matter" movement of late, is a worthy pursuit.
However, I would like to thank our police officers for their professionalism and dedication to duty and I would like to see mandatory sentencing for assaults on police officers considered by responsible governments.
Police enforce the laws that our community have developed via our political system. They are a very thin blue line between order and disorder and enable the vast majority of us to go about our daily lives in relative safety.
It is a noble and public-minded career and it should continue to attract some of the best, brightest and caring young people into its ranks but they need to be protected by the laws they enforce and esteemed by the community they protect.
Greg Budworth, Wallsend
Walk a mile in their shoes
I WANT to express my thanks to the NSW Police Force for doing everything they can to keep our community safe.
I feel they are often presented in television and the media as being bullies or worse, racist in some form.
I think if you are brave enough (and most of us are not) to walk in their shoes, people may reconsider what these men and women have to confront and manage to keep us all safe.
Those officers also have a life and loving families that deserve the right of a safe workplace.
We should be supportive and proud of our police force.
Interesting point for me is - when people are in trouble, who do they call? Yeah that's right, the police (thank heavens).
Terry Tynan, Merewether
MP's views understandable
MICHAEL Hinchey (Letters, 23/6), I find it quite understandable that MP Michael Johnsen, who was adopted rather than aborted (MP's adoption story, Herald, 19/6), might see abortion as a human life issue, and call out what he sees as a blind spot on the part of the so-called progressive left, for whom abortion law 'reform' and Aboriginal rights are both unchallengeable tenets.
There's nothing new here.
Pro-lifers for years have been connecting dots on slavery and abortion and the concept of personhood, who we consider 'persons' and who we consider 'non-persons'. Semantics do matter and we don't put them aside when they show up inconvenient truths.
Peter Dolan, Lambton
Plumbers union calling for change
I FIND it amazing that an expert on so much like Carl Stevenson (Short Takes, 22/6) fails to do basic research. Hospital gas installation is done by the contractors of the gas and medical supply companies, not ordinary workers who may or not be union members.
Sorry Carl it is actually the plumbers union and state Labor MP Mark Buttigieg who have been calling for those contractors to be qualified.
Colin Fordham, Lambton
Clean energy means jobs
RICHARD Mallaby (Letters, 20/6) rightly refers us to the CSIRO and the AEMO for facts on our power system.
A recent report by Ernst and Young found that every dollar spent on clean energy projects generates three times as many jobs as fossil fuel investments, making the federal government's post-COVID push to speed up fossil fuel projects at best questionable and at worst economically and ethically irresponsible.
Ray Peck, Hawthorn, Vic
SHARE YOUR OPINION
Email letters@newcastleherald.com.au or send a text message to 0427 154 176 (include name, suburb). Letters should be fewer than 200 words and Short Takes fewer than 50 words. Correspondence may be edited and reproduced in any form.
SHORT TAKES
PERHAPS the statue topplers/history rewriters should be reminded that: "The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it".
Brian Ashton, Islington
THE self-confessed "very stable genius" is onto something. Since his statement that less testing for coronavirus leads to less positive cases, I've eaten what I want but stopped looking at the bathroom scales - and guess what? I've gained no weight at all! I'm ramping it up now to not visiting the dentist so I won't have any cavities and I'll ignore the free bowel testing kit so that I avoid bowel cancer. Ignorance is bliss. Thank god for Donald Trump.
John Arnold, Anna Bay
LORD Mayor Nuatali Nelmes states "It is imperative that public open space for passive recreation is protected". Except of course for 10 weeks of every year when Supercars is in town. Vroom Vroom.
John Hudson, Newcastle East
GEOFF Black (Letters, 23/6) "understands" that the Catholic Church paid Cardinal Pell's legal fees. This is at odds with statements by the Cardinal himself and Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher. Does Geoff Black have evidence for this understanding, or is evidence, once again, only a secondary requirement when accusing Cardinal Pell?
Peter Dolan, Lambton
GEOFF Black (Letters, 23/6), it is none of your business what the Cardinal wants to publish related to the circumstances of his injustice of being wrongfully incarcerated in prison. What don't you get Mr Black; 7-0, 7-0, 7-0,7-0,7-0 means not guilty of all charges.
Trevor J Bates, Wallsend
THESE stories regarding damaged roads are nothing. Living at Dora Creek with lantana growth choking all vegetation and lining my road, after a good rainfall I need a machete and a can of mozzie repellent to clear a pathway. I reckon Dora Creek, especially my road, is the mozzie and lantana capital of Australia. I am still recovering from my second infection of Ross River Fever. These other roads may have potholes, but my road is a health hazard.
Carl Stevenson, Dora Creek
IN reply to Carl Stevenson (Letters, 22/6). Carl, you must be living in fantasy land if you think that unions have any say in who is employed on constructions sites under a Coalition government. Fair dinkum, if they had their way there would be no unions. These allegations concerning the gas lines were brought to light by a member of the plumbers union who was concerned about the implications of these installations.
Darryl Tuckwell, Eleebana
I AGREE with Joan Steele and David Fry (Short Takes, 13/6) who both object to the savage funding cuts to the ABC by succeeding Coalition governments who cannot cope with honest constructive criticism. There is one way to curb these insidious attempts by the government to stifle the truth. To save the ABC from extinction we must change governments at the next election.
