Letters to the editor, The Daily Advertiser, August 21, 2021

Recently there have been a number of letters questioning climate change in this newspaper. The fact is that the insurance industry worldwide is in the perfect position to analyse risk and they have recognised climate change since the early 1970s.

In 2005 there was a trifecta of hurricanes that rocked the insurance industry and since then we have witnessed multiple catastrophic events that continue to put upward pressure on insurance premiums.

I dare say that the same people who want to do nothing for our planet will be the first to scream when they see their insurance costs in the future rise to levels where you are unable to justify the costs of insurance coverage.

Just ask North Wagga residents how much it costs for flood insurance, then imagine how much it will cost to insure houses that are located near bushfire-prone areas in the future. If you don't believe it's true ask a farmer how much the premiums are for crop insurance. The Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics found Australian farmers lost on average nearly $30,000 each year in profits over the past 20 years due to the changing climate.

You can be sure that insurance companies are not ignoring climate change predictions when calculating the premiums that they will be charging in the future.

To think that future generations will not be able to afford to insure their family home will create huge anxiety within their household and what bank will lend money on a property that is uninsured?

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My mother was driven from her home at gunpont in 1943 by Tito's men. My father, one of Tito's men, fled the JFA at gunpoint in 1948 because he iron barred a kommissar for raping his sister.

The point is, there's just no fighting a man with a gun pointed at your head.

I really feel for these Afghanis (whose camel drivers opened Coolgardie up to miners and for whom we named a train in their honour). They, like my parents, will probably never go home, or have to wait for a regime change, perhaps not likely in the foreseeable future.

I hope they get made welcome here like my parents and us kids never were. I hope they never have to put up with being bashed and spat on by the people around them. I hope they never get told ''You're not an Australian - you'll never be an Australian'' like I was despite being born in Wagga Base in 1961.

I don't worry about the parents so much - they're adults and they can take their chances like the rest of us (but good luck all the same). It's the kids I worry about. "Show me the seven-year-old and I'll show you the 27-year-old." By the age of seven I knew I wasn't welcome here despite being born here. I hope the same fate doesn't await these wonderful innocent children.

My hearty really does go out to these people, more so to the kids. Nobody ever speaks for them. Perhaps I should just shut up and be content to have my heart bleed for them?

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