Looming economic dangers with inflation on the rise

With his wealth of economic experience, Robert Gottliebsen warns of an imminent reawakening of the inflationary beast (“Vaccination or inflation”, 13/7). His canary in the mine is the recent price spike in the construction industry prompted by labour and materials shortages. With the already painfully apparent rapidly rising prices of food, fuel, regional rents plus a surprising house price boom (or bubble?) that by some quirk is not part of official inflation figures, we have a worrying inflationary trend that, as Gottliebsen notes, will eventually translate into interest rate hikes. That house price bubble is, as Gottliebsen also says, at least partly influenced by a flight from cash by those whose savings are savagely eroded by present derisory interest rates. Together with the easy money and quantitative easing policies pursued by central banks since the 2008 financial crisis and massive Covid-induced public spending, it’s little wonder that some think we live in a fool’s paradise with nary a thought to gathering economic storm clouds.

John Kidd, Auchenflower, Qld

Costs of big Australia

Judith Sloan’s observation that the Treasury boffins plough on with their unqualified commitment to a big Australia, based on very high rates of immigration, underlines everything that is wrong with the federal parliament (“Maths doesn’t lie: Big Australia will be a fiscal drain”, 13/7). That irrespective of department – Treasury, health, energy, education, etc – it is an unelected, unaccountable (and often bloated) bureaucracy that is calling the shots. Indeed, if the unelected bureaucrats rule, what is the point of having elections? Australia’s population policy must be clearly articulated by all political parties – you first, Prime Minister – with our ballot box feedback sought.

Mandy Macmillan, Singleton, NSW

Nuclear disaster

Advocates of nuclear energy in Australia, such as Robert Kent and Don Higson (Letters, 13/7), overlook some important problems. Traditional large nuclear power stations are very expensive ($8bn to $12bn) and take about a decade to build. When they reach their retirement age of about 40 to 50 years, they are almost as costly (about $1.5bn) – and take even longer – to decommission.

It will take an estimated 44 years to decommission Japan’s Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant, which was all but destroyed by a tsunami on March 11, 2011. In the US, it takes 60 years to safely decommission a typical 1100-megawatt nuclear power station.

With Australia’s abundance of cost and emissions-free solar and wind energy, and the rapid evolution of “big battery” technology, nuclear energy is neither a practical nor an economically viable option.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin, ACT

Coal comfort

Anthony Albanese has been Labor leader for over two years, yet only now does he see fit to visit a coalmine, ostensibly to reassure workers that he is on their side, that he will protect their jobs (“Coal charm offensive as Labor leader tries to ease party’s troubles at mine”, 13/7). Albanese can visit as many coalmines as he likes, but no amount of smooth talking can hide the fact that Labor’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050 would see the nation’s coalmines shut down and coal workers tossed on to the dole.

Is this what Albanese means when he says he would “talk with workers at every opportunity about their aspirations for themselves and their communities”? Does he think coal workers are stupid, that they have forgotten the hardline climate and energy policies Labor dished up at the last election?

Dale Ellis, Innisfail, Qld

Climate challenge

The chief executive of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Paul Hardisty, makes many good points (“The reef is not fine and nor is it dying”, 12/7).

Climate change may be affecting the Great Barrier Reef but, just as elsewhere, it’s a phenomenon too easily blamed for many of the world’s problems. According to Hardisty: “Mass bleaching, unheard of before the 1990s, is now becoming a regular occurrence.”

It’s a certainty that a steadily increasing level of monitoring and research was bound to find more evidence of bleaching, but that does not necessarily make it a new reality.

Earth is estimated to be over four billion years old and it is impossible to believe its climate hasn’t changed millions of times through that period.

Furthermore, it’s ludicrous to claim that mankind can change the climate by sucking some CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Protecting the Great Barrier Reef is a noble pursuit deserving our full support, but it is also time we recognised climate change as inevitable. Learning to live with it is the real challenge.

Rob Davies, Drysdale, Vic