LETTERS: Too many experts, end foreign aid, Bundy bashers

THE problem is for every expert on the left, you can find one on the right.

AUSTRALIA FIRST: The government should stop foreign aid and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop giving out millions to other countries, says a reader. Picture: Matt Taylor GLA050418BISH

TOO MANY EXPERTS

LISTENING to experts, as Jay Fielding puts it (NM, 02/07), is advice that all of us who are uneducated in a field, should do.

The problem is for every expert on the left, you can find one on the right.

So "expert shopping” is the big item when a cause wants to push its point of view.

For example, the 45th US vice president supposedly makes all the difference and if an organisation like the United Nations says it's so, well then, it must be right.

So why are there as many experts and countries against the beliefs of these two examples?

Is it for environmental good, the truth, or for financial gain?

In a world where there are more poorer countries than rich ones, and financial, food and military support comes from ensuring that your country is onside with the captain, listening to experts (left or right) is not relevant.

- Lex Roberts,Avoca

UNION RESPONDS

D. CARROL (NM, 04/07) challenges the recent letter from a Queensland Teachers' Union representative about the cashless card because s/he has spoken to, wait for it, one teacher.

I'm sure that Mr Cook is regretting writing his letter now that there has been such a strong rebuttal.

D. Carrol poses the challenge of "looking at all sides of the equation”.

That has already occurred.

The QTU is made up of more than 44,000 members, all of whom have a say in union policy through input at workplace, branch, area and state council meetings.

The letter from QTU branch president Mr Cook accurately represented the union's democratically endorsed policy.

The final comment from D. Carrol is abhorrent and offensive to QTU members who spend each and every day looking after student welfare and also in the way it labels all parents who would be subject to the card as alcoholic, drug addicts.

- Steve Leese, vice-president, QTU Bundaberg North Branch

LOOK AFTER OUR OWN

BETTY Lowis's letter Toughen up (NM, 03/07) hit the nail squarely on the head, I would like to offer just a couple extra suggestions.

Pedeophiles should be right on top of her list.

We can fund new prisons by simply stopping our overly generous, jet-setting Julie Bishop from giving millions of our dollars to just about anybody she meets overseas.

We have too many problems right here in Australia that need to be resolved without the government handing out billions of dollars to every Tom, Dick and Harry with a sob story. Stop all aid to every other country until we have zero debt and every Australian is properly cared for.

- Jim Carter, Elliott Heads

FOCUS ON BASHERS

BEAU Jackson's letter (NM, 30/06) cast a web of intrigue with his accusations on what he terms "Bundy bashers”.

I would remind him that the page that his letter was reproduced on is titled Your Say and that is exactly what it produces. I would think that it is probably the most read page in the entire paper.

So in other words it is doing it's job, which is promoting differences of opinions.

Beau's ideas made me put on my thinking cap to identify who or whom is the biggest offender or "Bundy basher” in our fair city.

The joint winners are Keith Pitt and the NewsMail for their unrelenting promotion of the Cashless Debit Card.

If ever there was a more outstanding duo bringing our city into disrepute I can't think of one.

Their outstanding efforts have given shocking adverse publicity Australia wide to Bundaberg by the mere suggestion that our social security recipients are boozers, drug takers, gamblers and the biggest of all they don't feed their children.

This is top-drawer material; all the rest are a very distant second.

- Elsie Spinks, South Kolan

BUDGET TO HURT QLD

THIS year's State Budget was a Budget jam packed with taxes and debt.

Labor's five new taxes and fees will rip a total of $2.25 billion out of Queenslanders' pockets - that's $450 every Queenslander will give to the government.

That's $450 that could be going towards everyday expenses like groceries, soaring power bills or petrol for the car.

Astonishingly, despite this tax grab Labor is still careering Queensland towards an $83 billion debt bill that our kids and grandkids will have to pay back.

So not only will Queenslanders be paying more taxes now and into the future, they'll also be forced to pay off more and more debt.

- Tim Mander, Deputy Opposition Leader and Shadow Treasurer