Letters: China’s influence on Australia can’t be ignored

Today readers have their say on China’s influence on Australia, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s leadership and the climate protests.

Andrew Hastie has warned of China’s influence on Australia. Picture: Kym Smith

THERE is no doubt that most Australians live in a bubble.

Rather than face the obvious about China we prefer not to know.

Renee Viellaris’s column “China chokehold is too much to bear” (C-M, Aug 13) may wake a few up.

The pro-China activists who broke up the peaceful Hong Kong protest at the University of Queensland is just an example of the hold that pro-Chinese students hold over our universities.

As for spies, well you have to be living under a rock to believe that there are no Chinese spies.

There are spies who have even filtrated our political parties.

Tony Miles, Chermside

YES, Australia needs China to purchase its resources, but China desperately needs the West to purchase its mostly poor-quality goods in order to keep its people employed and content.

The people of Hong Kong have experienced the benefits of living under a western style of government and they are mostly not willing to now be governed by mainland China’s hardliners.

If the democracy movement gets a go, the Communist government has a lot to fear as the people will rise up and demand what they want.

Terence Risby, Ormiston

IN 1930, a humble backbencher raised the alarm bells about Germany’s increase in military armament and Britain’s lack of comparable readiness.

That backbencher was Winston Churchill, but few paid attention.

In 2019, a humble Australian backbencher rang the alarm bells about the growing military strength of China.

That backbencher is Andrew Hastie, and how many people have taken notice? How many are criticising him for damaging China-Australia relations and how many think we are militarily lacking?

Do we rely too much on the US to throw a protective shield over us?

In a missile attack we have no answers.

In a naval attack, we are unprotected with our new submarines only in a planning stage.

And in an air attack, we have problems with our new fighter jets yet to be delivered.

To say we must move faster to defend ourselves is an understatement.

Keith Whiteside, Sippy Downs

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Is Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk really in charge?

PREMIER’S POWER HANGS ON PUPPET STRING

COLUMNIST Peter Gleeson could not have been any closer to the truth (C-M, Aug 12).

The trouble with this Premier is she is very good with her mouth, as Peter Beattie was, at condemning the opposition but has no ideas of her own on how to run this state.

Then again I don’t think anyone else in this union-run government has either.

Sacking ministers Jackie Trad, Mick de Brenni, Steven Miles, Leanne Enoch and Shannon Fentiman would be a good start.

Unfortunately, this Premier does not have the intestinal fortitude to go against the unions and sack them or anyone else.

When they say jump, her answer is how high.

Ray Evans, Beenleigh South

PETER Gleeson’s column concerning Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (pictured) and the power and control of the Left within this State Government was coincidentally reinforced by a statement from a former nuts-and-bolts former Labor minister for mining, Tony McGrady, who urged the Premier to ignore the greenies and Left and get on with it.

As Gleeson said, the Premier needs to abandon the Left and make the Government a people’s government.

Palaszczuk has nothing to lose and everything to lose.

Paul McEllister, Carseldine

DON’T hold your breath that Annastacia Palaszczuk will take any action over the Jackie Trad property scandal.

She is only a puppet dependent on her deputy’s powerful faction which wields the power in the state.

I doubt if even a feather duster rap over the knuckles will ensue.

Mike Heap, Dicky Beach

THERE is a well-known term in the retail world – “buyer’s remorse”.

It describes a feeling where a buyer suffers regrets at buying goods that were too expensive or of inferior quality and should never really have been bought.

Well, given the whiffs of scandal emanating from the State government, coupled with spendthrift policies particularly on a ballooning public service turning Queensland from the “perfect” to the “mendicant” state, I am tempted to suspect that voters may be suffering buyer’s remorse.

Come the next election, those same voters may be standing ready to wield their hard-hitting cricket bats at a government that has apparently lost its way as well as their respect.

John Kidd, Auchenflower

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PROTESTER’S MOTIVATION

AS SOMEONE who has been involved in some of the protest activities so roundly condemned by some industry leaders and others (C-M, Aug 12), let me explain why I do what I do.

I’m in my late 70s and I have read enough to know that there is a worldwide scientific consensus that we must substantially reduce carbon emissions by 2030.

The alternative is to face the worst effects of climate breakdown – extreme heat, fires, storms and flooding the like of which we have never seen before.

But governments seem adamantly opposed to reducing emissions.

Our emissions have been going up for the past five years and are now at record levels.

Over that time, I have politely signed petitions to parliaments, written letters to industry and political leaders, spoken on several occasions to my state and federal representatives and even met with a relevant minister.

The responses to my concerns were also polite, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes dismissive. The results were zero.

We still forge ahead with activities like the Adani coal mine as though we were living in the 1950s.

I cannot believe that governments and industry are so ill-informed that they do not know the damage they are doing.

I am compelled to believe that they know, but do not care, because the worst of the consequences will not happen on their watch.

I desperately do not want my children and future generations to have to live in a world diminished by such disasters and I will do what I can to ensure that they do not.

So I will continue to engage in civil disobedience, hoping that those in responsible positions will wake up before it is too late.

Dermot Dorgan, Ashgrove

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