I'm chilled to the marrow by the PM's assurance that "we're not the Soviet Union" ('ALP won't break-up grocery chains', dailyadvertiser.com.au, February 22).
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Given the consistent back-flips by Anthony "my word is my bond" Albanese we must realise that when he says anything, his intention is the opposite.
He "hadn't changed his position" on promises for stage three tax cuts until he changed his position; our power bills were to be $225 lighter but sky-rocketed instead; The Voice dominated a year's worth of politics but now, even though he could legislate it tomorrow, he's gone schtum.
When a leader like that tells me "we're not the Soviet Union," you'd be a mug if you couldn't guess what he means.
Robert T Walker, Wagga
BASIN PLAN HAS COME FULL CIRCLE
When you have five people in one room, and everyone has a different opinion and everyone would champion their own state, so what has happened to the Murray Darling Basin Plan?
Five state governments surrendered their right to the Australian Constitution on the reasonable use of water which is rain to the federal government.
For over 100 years state governments worked together sharing water in times of drought, building dams to drought proof Australia and irrigation.
Remember the Federation drought 1895 to 1903 when state governments came together and came up with a Royal Commission to find the best method to conserve rainfall, NSW government of the day came up with plans to build the Burren Jack Dam (Burrinjuck Dam), and MIA Irrigation Area.
During the 1938-39 drought, Griffith farmers "were protesting" on their low allocation of water, people travelled to Griffith in protest, asking that the size of Burrinjuck Dam be increased.
The early years were the building years where state governments worked together with the Commonwealth in sharing the cost of dams and the vision of building towns and irrigation areas.
Not any more, we have the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who promise that the buyback of 450 gigalitres for South Australia, at the expense of NSW who signed the deal.
The Victorian government has not signed up.
Federal Labor Minister for Water and Environment Tanya Plibersek has purchased $55 million of water entitlements from areas such as Namoi River to (Restore our Rivers) Bill, the Commonwealth has ownership of 4600 gigalitres that is sitting in dams that are near capacity and all this flooding rain, rivers were in flood, it is not classified as environmental water, so what is environmental water, the rain that's falls over the land, rivers and streams?
The Basin Plan has come full circle from the early years building dams, towns and irrigation areas, and now with water buying back destroying towns and farming communities.
Fran Pietroboni, Griffith
CURVEBALLS A TACTICAL MOVE
Over the last century huge cigarette organisations fought tooth and nail to convince the public smoking tobacco was not harmful to their health.
One of their favourite strategies was to constantly throw curveballs, doubts, into the mix when the problems associated with smoking tobacco were being discussed.
This created a level of doubt in peoples minds and in fact was so successful it unfortunately delayed the demise of smoking tobacco for an agonisingly long period of time.
People, of course still smoke tobacco but the number of people smoking tobacco now,at last, has dropped in a very obvious manner.
It is now obvious to me that the curveball strategy used by the tobacco organisations is now being utilised with considerable success by organisations in Australia and elsewhere in relation to the utilisation of natural gas to create energy.
This is despite the fact that scientists have been saying loudly for many years burning gas is a major cause of human induced climate change.
Natural gas utilisation, together with fossil fuels coal and oil, is detrimental to countering the terrible problems associated with human-induced climate change.
Brian Measday, Kingswood
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