Closing time
I can remember when all businesses, including retail stores, used to close their doors on public holidays and everyone who worked spent quality time with their family and friends. If we ever ran out of anything we would go to the corner stores or service station to pick up some bread and milk, for example. Nowadays it seems to be the opposite, especially for those who work in the retail industry, where stores are now open almost every day of the calendar year, including Boxing Day, Australia Day and Anzac Day, where once before they weren't permitted to trade on these important holidays.
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Anzac Day is an important day on the Australian calendar where we commemorate people who went to war and fought for our country’s freedom and sadly most of them did not return from battle. In the late 90s, the Howard government allowed retail stores to trade on this important day provided that no business was allowed to open until 1pm on Anzac Day. It is an utter disgrace why any business should be allowed to trade at all on this very important day of the year and I think that all people who served in these wars would be turning over in their graves.
Both governments state and federal need to review public holiday trading days and for those who work in retail give them the well-earned rest they deserve and most importantly the quality time to spend with family and friends.
Peter Smith, Wagga
Time to prioritise
It is not very long that we were told by the Federal Liberals that Australia faced a “Debt and Deficit Disaster”. Given some of the pronouncements from the present Prime Minister, are we to assume that all is now well and that we can launch a spending splurge? The news that a very large sum is to be spent on the changes proposed for the War Memorial is one; the plan to move our embassy in Israel, which will be very costly in many ways, is another. Balance some of this spending with the transfer of funds from the NDIS to a time in the future to enhance drought protection. I wonder if priorities are correct when we consider increasing homelessness (especially among older women) and the large sums spent by the government fighting in court to prevent medical transfers from Nauru. It is not difficult to think that we are governed by chaos and inhumanity and opportunistic electioneering, not that that is unusual on any side but it is hard not to think that the pursuit of and retention of power is more important than the lives of the entire population.
Mary Kidson
Wagga
Grammatically (in)correct
You cannot have the subheading that "Wagga faces one fewer competitor" for the new pilot school ("Bid for takeoff", Daily Advertiser, November 1).
A "few", by definition, is a plural adjective; hence, we might face one "less" competitor or be up against "fewer competitors" but "one fewer competitor" was once grammatically called a "schoolboy howler". Consider, in comparison, "there was one fewer dog in the street when Lassie went to Hollywood".
Were we in France, the General Delegation for the French Language would be in an uproar and you'd be marched to the Bastille.