Anti-terrorism law
In the Howard government's proposed anti-terrorism law, clauses in schedule 4 of the draft bill defines which family members could be contacted by someone in preventative detention and includes same-sex partners in the definition of family member. Interesting, in that all other government legislation refuses to recognise such a relationship, it also begs another question. Have you ever heard of a gay jihadist?
Daniel Laws
Mapleton, Qld
Obesity
If the Australian government is so convinced that physical activity is the panacea for our obesity then it should be legislating for one hour's exercise as an essential provision of the new IR reforms so we can all join PM John Howard on his walk and health minister Tony Abbott on his ride.
I hope the minister was quoted out of context on ABC TV's Four Corners program when he was asked "What if we don't address the crisis of one in four children being obese?" His answer: "We will just have to treat the diabetes." Currently, the medication cost alone is over $2 billion per year and increasing by 5% per year. This is not to mention the coronary bypass surgery, the amputations, renal failure and blindness caused by diabetes.
This is from a government that has adopted only one of five recommendations from the anti-obesity task force and refuses to look at other strategies like fat taxes, food labelling and advertising restrictions or public education campaigns like Quit for smoking; a government that spends $100 million on advertising an IR policy that has not been debated in parliament.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of treatment was the old axiom taught to us in medical school. How apt.
Dr Colin Hughes
Previous chairperson of the preventive and community medicine committee
Royal Australian College Of GPs
Glen Forrest, WA
Nuclear weapons
The 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) sought to free the world from what was seen to be an unsustainable nuclear arms race. In February 2003, Geoff Hoon, Britain's defence minister, bluntly warned Iraq that it faced a potential nuclear weapons attack if it used any chemical or biological weapons as defence against the forthcoming coalition invasion. For countries as weak as Iraq, the threat of nuclear attack is still tenable. However, the threat that any nuclear aggressor now faces is that more sophisticated economies, with a substantial domestic nuclear industry and a modest military capability now have the potential at short notice to strike back against nuclear armed aggressor, with a degree of ferocity that will deter.
Why then does Iran, a middle-ranking economy, continue to receive so much attention? Perhaps it is the country's global aspiration that runs counter to US foreign policy and the strategic petroleum and gas reserves that make it a world player. As a neighbour, Iran is both adversely affected and troubled by Iraq's current situation and understandably keen preserve its own independence and security!
The 1968 NPT specifically calls on all states to refrain from making threats to use force. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's comments at the UN this month that Iran's nuclear power program is a threat to global security and a matter that deserves the attention of the Security Council and Geoff Hoon's announcement that Britain is prepared to use "small" nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive strike against non-nuclear states are confirmation that Iran's record of compliance with the spirit of the NPT is in relative terms, strong. Yet Iran continues to be singled out.
John Stretch
Carnarvon, WA [Abridged]
Nuclear energy
On its public events website, Newcastle University is publicising a book titled Nuclear Energy Fallacies, written by retired physicist Colin Keay, who was an associate professor at the university teaching nuclear and reactor physics. A September 30 media release put out by the university's media unit says Keay "has republished the book in answer to consistent and considerable scaremongering about the nuclear issue. He says this is not new, that for years he has been concerned about the vast number of unsubstantiated claims and hysteria about nuclear energy that have proliferated in the media."
Keay claims that anti-nuclear activists use scare tactics in Australia where the amount of nuclear waste generated is very small on a world scale. "Australians are spooked", he says, "by the nonsense of anti-nuclear activists". Keay argues that Australia should just store the world's nuclear waste.
Keay's book was challenged in (Write On, GLW #549) by Dr Jim Green for repeating information supposedly heard from a radio program that has turned out to be a fallacy about Sutherland shire councillor Genevieve Rankin comparing Lucas Heights to Chernobyl. Dr Green also wrote that some of Keay's fallacies in his booklet were parroted by Paddy McGuinness in the August 11, 2001, Sydney Morning Herald and printed as fact.
Furthermore, according to Dr Green, (GLW #622) there are so many health and environmental problems with nuclear waste disposal and nuclear fuel reprocessing as well as being irresponsible and impractical that nuclear energy is no solution to global warming.
The University of Newcastle media unit's phone number is (02) 4921 5351.
Kerry Vernon
Newcastle, NSW
AWA contracts for politicians
The Howard government wants everybody to sign these AWA individual contracts. Should not the politicians sign these contracts, so they have to perform according to their electorate? The politicians should sign these AWA contracts, not the ordinary Australian worker who is going to be sucked dry by these leeches of a government.
Tania Walsh
via email
From Green Left Weekly, October 26, 2005.
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