WE READ with interest the article (Mail, 30 August) about the dairy farmer study tour.
As our son is dairying on our property at Glenburn and is the sole dairy farmer left in the area, he thought he would like to make application.
Upon ringing the person named in the article we were informed that the application was already closed.
Dairy Australia tells me that it had advertised it widely but it was certainly the first time we had heard about it when we read it in the Mail.
Needless to say we are disappointed that all dairy farmers in our state were not given the opportunity to know about the tour and know in time to make application.
Betty Jeffery
Glenburn
GEMBROOK MP Tammy Lobato deserves our support and encouragement in her initiative to have car registration and third party paid by instalments.
We can pay rates, electricity, water and all credit purchases by this method so it is about time that VicRoads came on board.
It makes life a lot easier for those of us on fixed or low incomes as we can have the money taken out each fortnight and not have a sudden debt crisis every other quarter or years.
This initiative and the article (Mail, 30 August) shows just how much Tammy is in contact with the needs of her electorate as against other state members of parliament.
Albert Grulke
Warburton
AS THE wild winds ripped across the great divide last week, attention was brought to our possible link with the devastating US hurricane Katrina.
Alarming scenes of Katrina’s damage were plastered across our television and newspapers as Victoria’s winds also gained momentum across the east of the state. Is there a link between the two? Yes and the link is a threat called climate change.
The scientific and political debate about whether the growth in damage from extreme weather events is being driven by human modification of the global climate system or if it results simply as a function of natural changes in the weather.
Do emissions of greenhouse gases at coalfired power plants and forest regeneration burning in Victoria have anything to do with the occurrence or ferocity of a large hurricane striking the Gulf Coast of the United States?
Australians are the highest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world at about 27 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year (the global average is about five tonnes). Furthermore, Australia’s economy is strongly supported by the use and export of products that emit a large amount of greenhouse gases either when produced (e.g. aluminium) or when used (e.g. energy coal and coking coal).
Premier Steve Bracks has plunged another 400 million taxpayers dollars into propping up the coal industry, which will come at the expense of industries like agriculture and forestry.
The native logging industry will suffer massive decline as climate change impacts on natural ecosystems with increased frequency and intensity of forests fires, drought and impacts on natural processes.
Oil peak and Katrina’s impact on the oil reserves has created a situation where the wood resource value cannot outweigh the logistics costs.
What we are seeing is an industrial Armageddon as Australia has no substantial measuring system (like the Kyoto protocol) for carbon contributors. Therefore we are unable to balance industry contribution and its impacts.
Finally, Katrina sends us the most chilling message of all; the storm makes it clear that everyone on this planet is at risk from climate change.
We cannot continue to ignore our local windy warnings, Lake Mountain’s dismal and declining snowfields, disappearing water catchments and we can only hope that political leaders and industry will recognise the important global lessons she has delivered.
Sarah Rees
The Central Highlands Alliance
Toolangi
THE Country Alliance is still doing it.
These people seem to feel that if anyone opposes their particular views, that person must be blind, stupid or evil, or all three. They are not satisfied by addressing issues, but insist on attacking the person.
David Risojevic’s response to my letter is a perfect example. He makes some arguments about issues, but feels it necessary to also recast my points in an attempt to put me in a bad light.
According to him, I am “cursed by jealousy” because I objected to a lack of fairness and equity.
As a psychologist, I often work with people who are in conflict situations within a family or workplace. One of the major factors that causes problems is “mind reading”.
You say something, and although I hear the words, the interpretation I put on them is entirely different from what you intended.
For example, a husband comes home tired, and all he wants is half an hour of peace. The wife has been alone at home with nothing but a baby for company, and she needs adult contact. So, she starts to chat as soon as he walks in. His response is, “Oh, just let me be for a while”. At this, she feels rejected and unloved.
Marriages have been blown apart by such misunderstandings. Businesses have failed, and on a larger scale, wars started because people attribute motives to each other that may well be incorrect.
I assure Mr Risojevic that I am not plagued by jealousy. If he met me personally, he would soon be convinced of it. He might even decide that I’m not a bad bloke after all, even if I think that his political and environmental views are a lot of rubbish.
He is entitled to them. I want to maintain his freedom to believe whatever he wants, and to be able to publicly express his views. I would put my life on the line to protect this right.
All I ask in response is that he do so in a respectful way.
I think that all the heat and aggression on the part of the Country Alliance is because they have confused the message with the messenger.
The message is that within a short 200 years, we have devastated much of this country. When the European invasion occurred, Australia was the least forested continent.
I don’t know the current statistics, but some years ago, 70 per cent of that forest had been cleared. We have damaged fragile mountain soils and even more fragile semidesert areas by introducing hooved animals that had never been there before, and through pest species like rabbits, deer and pigs. Our irrigation schemes have brought on the curse of salinity.
The messengers are not responsible for putting a stop to activities that are now seen to be unsustainable. We are just saying, “Stop, for all our sakes”.
Robert Rich
Healesville
