People power will decide fate of an Indigenous voice, not politics

George Williams’s article sets out the many difficulties and problems in taking a voice to a referendum (“Labor should take a step back in voice debate”, 8/8).

He also provides information on just how long it might take before a referendum can be held. However, while the Uluru Statement asks for the voice to be entrenched in the Constitution, the reasons that should occur have never been addressed or explained by Anthony Albanese and the other and associated voice elites.

Albanese, with bipartisan support from the Coalition, could and should legislate a voice in the next sitting of parliament and just get on with the job. But instead he will use the costly exercise of putting the voice in the Constitution for political pointscoring and grandstanding.

Clive Jensen, Merewether, NSW

Can society, governments, individuals – however well intentioned – ever right the wrongs of the past?

It is important that we are made aware and chastened by our sins of both omission and commission in relationship to all those who collectively and individually have been ill-treated in our historical past.

The despised and degraded are many, Aboriginal people are uppermost in our current discourse. Would a voice leading to constitutional change address their real needs?

With successive groups of arrivals to this land, who have, in turn been treated with disdain, suspicion and often aggression. With the First Fleet came the convicts and their children. Then there were the Chinese heading for the goldfields. The Irish Catholics, the Jewish survivors of Nazi oppression, followed by the Greeks, Italians, those from the Baltic States, the “Asians”. All nationalities seeking distance from discord, oppression and poverty in a new land.

The past is the past, which we cannot change. However, we can, and need to, increase our political and individual awareness of the real needs of all those who call Australia home.

Stephanie Summers, North Turramurra, NSW

Death warmed up

Australian Institute of Marine Science monitoring of the Great Barrier Reef is the most extensive and comprehensive record of coral condition of a single reef ecosystem available in the world.

Dr Peter Ridd’s compliment for AIMS’s monitoring program (“The reef is strong, so stop the scare campaign”, 5/8) is ironic in that for the last five years he has been calling AIMS science “untrustworthy” – particularly when we have reported declining coral cover.

Despite the good news of the reef, Ridd fails to acknowledge that the survey data show the threats of acute disturbances to the reef are the highest in 36 years of monitoring.

The last two decades have brought greater numbers of intense cyclones. Water temperature continues to increase, marine heatwaves are more common and bleaching events are occurring closer together.

Ridd labels such caution as being a “killjoy” but the fact is the ecosystem is dynamic. As we have seen recently in the southern reef, recovery was arrested and reversed by crown of thorns starfish, and the mass coral bleaching this March occurred during a cooler La Nina year. Since 2016, bleaching, not cyclones, as Ridd maintains, is the main contributor to coral loss.

More than a decade after Cyclone Hamish and six years since the two consecutive mass coral bleachings, the battered reef has had time to recover but a cyclone or another severe coral bleaching are now only ever one summer away, which would have serious consequences for coral cover.

Dr Paul Hardisty, CEO Australian Institute of Marine Science

Fun and games

As the sun now sets on what has been an enthralling Commonwealth Games, congratulations must go to the host city, Birmingham, for its organisation, and also the Australian team, for providing us a display of patriotic pride and all-round gutsy performances.

The last two weeks have reminded us that this quadrennial sporting competition has both enduring and endearing merit.

There is good reason it has traditionally been labelled the Friendly Games: a tremendous spirit of collegiality exists between the 72 nations united by their historical ties to Britain.

One of the most delightful aspects was seeing participation by countries which normally would not be expected to qualify for an Olympic Games.

A Papua New Guinean swimmer; a Mauritian weightlifter; a Zambian sprinter; an Indian wrestler, and a Cyprian gymnast, are all expressions of the unique bonds and competitive opportunities that exist within the Commonwealth clan, delivering a much-needed sensory taste of solidarity among humanity. Bring on Victoria 2026.

Peter Waterhouse, Craigieburn, Vic