Parliament’s privilege
What gives members of parliament the right to smear and subject courts, when they are considering court cases and appeals when the hoi polloi would be hauled in and jailed instantly for the same thing?
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G R Hall
Wagga
Bag ban welcomed
I welcome news that both Woolworths and Coles will phase out single use plastic bags in NSW within the next 12 months, and I implore the NSW Government to ban the bag entirely in NSW.
While NSW Government is unwilling to take action, big businesses like Woollies and Coles have taken it upon themselves to ban single use plastic bags in NSW.
In a matter of weeks, my plastic bag ban petition got over 100,000 signatures. Community support is huge. People can see evidence of destruction caused by plastic bags to environment, especially the impacts on marine life including turtles and sea birds.
With a state environment ministers meeting only days away, the time for action is now.
Why must the NSW Government be the last bastion of terrible environmental policies? South Australia, ACT, the Northern Territory and Tasmania already have state-wide bans.
The NSW Government must step up and have the guts to ban the bag. I call on Premier Berejiklian to make the announcement and ban plastic bags in NSW.
Mehreen Faruqi MLC
NSW Greens
State’s housing win
New South Wales has retained its lead over Victoria in the latest Housing Industry Association scorecard report, which ranks each of the eight states and territories based on the performance of their housing markets across 14 key indicators.
The east coast dominated the top rankings again, with the west still affected by the cyclical down-turn.
NSW and Victoria have experienced strong population growth, house price rises and growing demand for more affordable housing which has driven the boom in apartment construction in those states.
Tim Reardon
Housing Industry Association
Conservative in policies
Malcolm Turnbull claims the Liberal party is not a conservative party.
He has cut pensioners’ payments so he can give millionaires a large tax reduction and cut the working man’s take-home pay – and he claims to be centre right.
Tony Abbott says the Liberals are too far left.
Labor policy is not left or right – it is based on what works. It is called common sense.
That is not what we are getting from this conservative federal government. Yes they can call themselves anything they like but they have conservative policies.
Ken Morehouse
Wangaratta
Sex, church and politics
The Australian Sex Party wants churches to lose their tax-exempt status.
An article headed: “Time to end unfair privilege of religion…” is currently on its website and has appeared in various newspapers.
Millions of dollars would be saved – so they say – dollars spendable on government-run hospitals, schools, welfare... requiring, perhaps, thousands more bureaucrats? Still, the proposal merits thinking about.
The article goes on to say: “It’s time to take religion out of politics….”
Why not? Isn’t real politics about back-stabbing, poll-watching and looking after one’s mates? Who wants to hear about God, virtue or right and wrong?