POLITICIANS DESERVE CONTEMPT
I couldn't agree more with John Hewson ("Voters kept in dark over spending abuses", The Weekend Advertiser, July 3).
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The former leader of the Coalition was writing about the latest federal government corruption atrocity, the $660 million car park mess. Combined with 'sports rorts' and the abuse of the Regional Infrastructure Fund, this is now basically a billion dollars of taxpayers' money used as a slush fund by the Coalition at the last election.
In a letter on this page early last year I wrote that their 2019 win "wasn't a miracle, it was fraud". Yet I am still shocked when more details come out.
Of course the difference between fighting for your electorate and pork barrelling can be a grey area - but this lot seems determined to see how black they can make it.
Nor is corruption limited to one side of politics. (Who could forget the disgrace that is Edward Moses Obeid, among others).
Yet what we are now seeing isn't just bad individuals. It is relentless, systemic, and often seems to come from the Prime Marketer himself.
It is government by posturing, not policy. Not so much a government as a marketing exercise by RortsAreUs. Witness the pathetic, puerile stunt by the Nationals in parliament over water policy, where they pretended to be unaware the minister responsible sat in their own party room and their whip contradicted himself repeatedly.
Often it seems to me they have to be dragged reluctantly into any action at all. Even funding to protect the National Archives was only provided after intense lobbying. The budget of the National Audit Office should be increased, and discretionary grants programs should be abolished unless politicians can find some semblance of responsibility.
Ever more clearly we need a federal anti-corruption commission with jaws and teeth. Surely it is fundamental to the national interest that our elected representatives into the future know there are severe repercussions for bad behaviour.
As things are, why should we not treat them with relentless, blistering, contempt?
David Ball, Wagga
WE WERE WARNED OF WARMING
After our recent horrific summer of bushfires, spare a thought for Canadians who are experiencing unheard of temperatures and wild fires with 194 people dying suddenly since Friday from suspected heat impacts of temperatures of 49.5C.
This is shocking evidence of what is happening to our climate but we can't say we weren't warned. To continue to support the burning of fossil fuels as the world is heating up is criminal.
Leanne Schulz, Brucedale
READ MORE LETTERS:
BASE LETTERS ON FACTS, TRUTH
Bob Montgomery makes sweeping statements in his letter "Lack of action proves costly" which are partly true and misleading.
He states "Pentecostalists believe in an 'end of times' in which the world is destroyed and they (and only they) will ascend to Heaven. And for the rest of us, too bad".
This is absolutely a false statement. You are putting words into the mouths of the Pentecostals. This is wrong.
By statements which are misleading and false you do not make yourself believable. If you do not base your letter on fact and truth, you had better not write at all.
Paul Bosman, Estella
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