YOUR SAY: ‘World’s first title for the most polluted air – New Delhi’

‘Tens of thousands of people will die from poor air quality related conditions’

Beachgoers are seen on Milk Beach as smoke haze from bushfires in New South Wales blankets the CBD in Sydney, Saturday December 7, 2019. There were almost 100 bush and grass fires in NSW on Saturday afternoon with more than 50 of them uncontained, and 16 burning at the "watch and act" alert level. (AAP Image/Steven Saphore) NO ARCHIVING

Adani air quality

SO, CANBERRA has the second most polluted air in world - a result of Australia's bushfire horror.

This is not a prideful statistic but, at least, Canberra's air will clear once the fires are contained.

Think about the city that boasts the 'world's first' title for the most polluted air - New Delhi.

Their air is not going to clear for many years to come; not until they start closing down their coal-powered power stations.

During those years, tens of thousands of people will die from poor air quality related conditions, many of them newborn and unborn babies.

And still Australians think it is all right to sell thermal coal from the Galilee Basin to India. Why? Because India wants to buy it.

With that argument, why are drug dealers in this country punished? They are simply selling a product that someone else wants to buy.

Those Australians who are experiencing the effects of severe air pollution for the first time - and their political representatives - should realise what the Adani mines would really be sending to their countrymen; illness and death.

Stop Adani now, before it's too late.

Brooke McReynolds, Mackay

VAD laws need priority

THE Queensland Parliament's cross-party health committee spent much of 2019 inquiring into end-of-life issues, including voluntary assisted dying, and visited Mackay to hear personal evidence.

Health committee members from across the parliament should be congratulated on the work they have done so far in dealing with extremely complex and often highly emotional issues; and they have more work to do before their reporting deadline at the end of March.

However, swift action is needed by our state parliament on any inquiry recommendations for voluntary assisted dying laws or else possible reforms will become a partisan political football at the October 2020 state election and then be left for the next parliament to consider.

The solution is firmly in the hands of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who should ask Mr Harper's committee for an early report on voluntary assisted dying as soon as possible in this new year and allow them to report by the end of March on the other issues of aged care and palliative care.

If voluntary assisted dying laws are to become a reality the best chance is through a government-sponsored Bill on which all 93 MPs can exercise a conscience vote for or against.

The urgency is revealed by data from the National Coronial Information System showing that each month an average of seven people with a terminal illness and irretrievable physical decline take their own life in Queensland.

By comparison, parliamentary inquiries in Victoria and WA were told that around one such person a week took their own life in those states.

The current Queensland parliament established the health committee inquiry; the inquiry will report to the current parliament; so the current parliament must consider its recommendations.

The issue is too important and too urgent to be fobbed off to another parliament of unknown composition after the next election.

Queensland needs voluntary assisted dying laws sooner not later to offer another choice at the end of life.

Under voluntary assisted dying laws there will not be one single extra death, but there will be a lot less suffering.

David Muir, Chair, Clem Jones Group

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