The proposal by the Federal Government to sell off part of Telstra to fund its environmental promises is a blunder. Other viable and proven options are available.
What is wrong with the Government using interest free or very low interest credit from the Reserve Bank to fund essential capital projects and infrastructure such as the restoration of the environment rather than sell off part of Telstra?
This measure will promote social, environmental and financial stability. From 1959 to 1984 until full financial deregulation the Reserve Bank issued 1% loans to Australian Governments.
Also what is wrong with using Section 51 (Part 13) of the Constitution which gives parliament, through the Treasury, the power to release cost free credit for public purposes instead of selling off part of Telstra? This will not be inflationary if done correctly. Many thousands of jobs can be created nationwide by the wider use of these options.
For national economic sovereignty and a greater harmony of interests amongst all concerned Australians it is vitally important that the above options be implemented. At a commonsense grassroots level the people do not want Telstra or any other Australian assets to be sold. Political freedom without economic freedom is very deceptive. Enough is enough.
Bernie Bourke
Economic Reform Australia
Bacchus Marsh Vic
Guns — 1
I have been surprised to read letters in GLW actually supporting gun ownership. In my experience, many gun owners are filled with fantasies of "protecting themselves and their families", when they are more likely, much more likely, to get rid of themselves and their families with it. And it is not people who believe in legitimate (and I do not mean, necessarily, legal) protest, comradeship or solidarity, who have guns ... the gun-owners are the ultra-right loonies using it as an extension of the male member, and often terrorising their own families. That does not hold for all gun-owners, but for some I have met myself.
"Ordinary" people have guns too. God knows why a couple I knew in New Zealand had a gun in the house. Their thirteen year old son found it when they had gone out, and killed himself with it.
People who think of themselves as on the left can leave behind fantasies of armed revolution through private gun ownership, and get on the side of common sense, and get rid of the bloody things.
Stephen Langford
Paddington NSW
Guns — 2
The easy assumption that John Howard holds the moral and intellectual high ground in the Gun Control debate, and particularly that our neighbours are no threat to us, is not the educated guess.
In an article called "The Coming Anarchy", from the venerable Atlantic Monthly (Feb '94), Robert Kaplan quotes the Head of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto, Thomas Fraser Homer-Dixon: "... future wars and civil violence will also arise from scarcities of resources such as water, crop land, forests, and fish". This will induce "hard (authoritarian) regimes in countries such as Indonesia, that have declining resources ... a history of state (military) strength ... and soaring populations".
Kaplan, an adviser to the UN on future conflict patterns argues that States like Indonesia and Nigeria, are already exporting these "wars and civil violence" to close neighbours in this search for the much-needed resources. Australia is geographically close and, per capita, the most resource-rich country in the world. The picture is obvious.
A senior Australian adviser — Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies head, Professor Paul Dibb — warned at the beginning of May of the instability, possibly nuclear, of the Asia-Pacific citing as key concerns "the large numbers of territorial disputes ... between States ... as flashpoints that could erupt with little or no warning".
We may in fact need more guns rather than less. Small, vulnerable countries like Cuba or Switzerland, survive in periodically hostile environments by having each household armed and carefully trained.
I suggest we find out more about Switzerland, Cuba and any other examples of this polite but firm territorial defence strategy. Arming the population is actually the ultimate democratic gesture of confidence.
John Braby
Conondale Qld
[Edited for length.]