Marcia Langton has advanced understanding of what a voice would be

Having read Monday’s comment article by Marcia Langton (“Sabotage claim unfair: united voice could not be clearer”, 25/7), I am saddened that she interpreted my piece in The Weekend Australian (“Want a voice? It should be a simple Yes or No”, 23-24/7) as being critical of her ongoing advocacy around the Indigenous voice to parliament and have written to her directly to apologise.

Far from ever believing that she is motivated by a desire to “sabotage the process”, I have consistently and publicly recognised and admired the work Langton and Tom Calma have done in advancing the nation’s understanding of the potential form and function of the voice.

The view that I set out to convey in my article is closely aligned with the one Langton expresses in hers: that because so much carefully considered work has already been done to progress the model set out in the final report of the co-design process, it is a mischievous furphy for anyone, including former prime ministers, to suggest that Australians need to see detailed legislative provisions before they are asked to vote on a simple question of “Yes or No to a voice?”.

Mark Leibler, Melbourne

Professor Marcia Langton (25/7) succinctly rejects Mark Leibler’s claim that her position on the Indigenous voice to parliament is “sabotage”. However, the min­utiae of debate between the insiders behind the voice is of little interest to the vast majority of Australians who must vote in the proposed referendum. Their question must surely be: what will the voice achieve to address Indigenous issues, particularly in remote communities, such as health, education, domestic violence etc, which cannot be addressed through existing mechanisms?

Unless proponents can show that the voice would make substantive improvements for remote Indigenous people and how they would be achieved, most will view the voice as just another gesture but with the real effect of constitutionally dividing our nation by race. The referendum stands no chance if that question is not answered.

Paul Clancy, Tanunda, SA

Adaptation by degrees

In Chris Mitchell’s epic take-down of climate alarmism (“Environment ‘fear porn’ hides truth”, 25/7), one fact stands out or me – that we are spending trillions of dollars on renewables to prevent a further planetary warming of 0.4C. Humankind is an adaptive lot, so consider the iron ore worker living in Cooma, where frost is on the ground at -5C when he sets out for his FIFO job in the Pilbara.

Changing planes at Melbourne it is a windy and wet 14C, and a sunny 22C on arrival in Perth. He gets in his trusty airconditioned HiLux ute at Port Hedland airport and drives to the minesite and is greeted by 35C on a winter’s day. But life and work go on regardless, and our mine worker has comfortably adapted over 24 hours to a temperature change of 40 degrees.

In this perverse world of net zero, we are witnessing peak economic vandalism, chasing a largely unmeasurable and inconsequential 0.4 degrees of temperature rise.

GM Derrick, Sherwood, Qld

Christianity’s role

As one of those “game stickers-up for Christianity” characterised by GK Chesterton, Greg Sheridan (“Lost in the secular desert”, 23-24/7) conveys more hope than despair, more compassion than hostility and yet more realism than today’s many enemies to the Christian faith, whose disproportionate focus on Christianity rather than on, say, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic or Aboriginal spirituality perhaps betrays as much fear as loathing.

But Christians – Scott Morrison was mentioned – will cope because above all their faith is rooted in a life beyond this earthly life, which has made them historically all the more concerned to improve life on Earth by abolishing slavery, treating women and children as of equal value in God’s sight, condemning violence and establishing hospitals and schools.

If contemporary wokedom could acknowledge the Christian sources of its own values of compassion, social justice, environmentalism, inclusion, diversity, anti-racism and anti-sexism, it might not only be humbler in its opposition but might have a longer history heading into the future. Two thousand years will take some beating to start with.

Neville Clark, Battery Point, Tas

ABC funded for culture

Chris Kenny writes about the ABC as if its only role was in news and current affairs (“ABC is more interested in silencing alternative views”, 23-24/7). But it is much more than that, and I suspect that more than half the population who listen to the various radio stations covering a diversity of interests and tastes and watch programs on ABC iview would be concerned if these programs were curtailed due to reduced funding.

Alison Stanford, Eumundi, Qld