Let’s hope Rinehart’s message about virtue signalling gets through

My take is that Gina Rinehart has done Australia a massive favour. Whether Australia, in particular many parliamentarians and corporate heavyweights, care to understand is another matter. She has very practically demonstrated that Australia, especially currently, has not the time and leeway to muck about with all the claptrap that has been increasingly poisoning our society, actually for some time.

Again, whether Rinehart’s message is understood and acted upon is entirely another matter.

Peter M. Wargent, Mosman, NSW

We have seen a company offer $15m to netball, and the netballers celebrate the gift by registering dissatisfaction. Not unreasonably, the donor expected the players to get on with playing and leave politics to the politicians. Why does netball need $15m? It’s a game, and the gate decides how much the players are worth. If that is inadequate, they have the option of getting a job, like the rest of us. Donors have every right to withhold money that is unappreciated. Who could expect more?

Richard Stokes, Stanthorpe, Qld

Pared down to its essentials, the rationale of the netballers appears to be this: they’d like the money of course but, given the racist views attributed to Gina Rinehart’s long-deceased father, they regard its provenance as tainted and thus would prefer not to publicly acknowledge the donor. No statute of limitations for racism.

It’s been annoying me for days, but something about this scenario sounded familiar. I’ve finally made the connection: it was the exchange in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged between the industrialist, Hank Rearden, and his parasitic poseur of a brother.

For all the novel’s flaws and even occasional loopiness, Rand showed remarkable prescience: she was arguably the first to heap contumely on virtue signalling and professional victimhood decades before such descriptors even existed.

Terry Birchley, Bundaberg, Qld

Powerful punch

The expected electricity rise of maybe 50 per cent in 2023 has nothing to do with external forces such as war in Ukraine. Australia has always generated most of its electricity predominantly and economically from its own fossil fuel sources. We have moved away from these and cost increases come entirely from a completely botched implementation of wind and solar that continues to be extraordinarily expensive. In 30 years and with spending of more than $70bn, the transition has been only 10 per cent to wind and solar. For net zero, if indeed this is technically possible or necessary, price rises based on this data will be more than 400 per cent. Basically Australians are being misled by guessing politicians. It’s a huge worry.

Richard Corbett, Mosman, NSW

Page 21 of The Australian on Tuesday certainly made for interesting reading. In the right-hand column, Robert Gottliebsen’s article nails it again on the importance of Victorian gas (“Victorian gas critical to Australia and the region”). The article bordering it on the left written by trade unionist Sharan Burrow doesn’t even mention the word gas. In fact, Burrow actually states “fossil fuels are worsening our current cost-of-living crisis”. Aren’t trade unions supposed to protect workers’ jobs? Doesn’t she realise that without affordable and reliable power, industry and manufacturing will cease and there will be no jobs? Nor does her allegiance to the climate change cult come before her union members.

Antony Blakeley, Winchelsea, Vic

Chris Bowen just can’t bring himself to admit that it is coal royalties that continually bolster the coffers of Queensland and Western Australia and are now giving Jim Chalmers’ federal budget a welcome financial lift. Admit it. Australia’s schools, hospitals, infrastructure, healthcare and myriad community projects are all funded, in large part, by mining income, as Gina Rinehart is trying to say to naive netball players. Switch to renewables? Certainly. But down the track, after wind and solar have been made reliable by coupling with improved battery storage.

John Clark, Burradoo, NSW

British humour

What is the score now? Five British PMs in six years (2016-22): David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Well, Australians shouldn’t scoff because our own record is just as bad. Five Oz PMs in five years (2013-18): Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd again, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison.

Tony Herbert, Battery Point, Tas

Kind Cowley

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Ken Cowley. I remember him well from my time working for The Australian. He was definitely up there with the big boys but was always friendly and kind to the secretaries.

Elizabeth Jobson, Tamborine Mountain, Qld