LETTERS: Congratulations, now move on GKI

Letter writer Brett Svendsen says Keppel Island should be top priority for the ALP.

Brett Svendsen says Labor should move on Great Keppel Island. Picture: Glenn Adamus

CONGRATULATIONS to Annastacia Palaszczuk, Barry O'Rourke and Brittany Lauga on their election to government.

A good fight, well won.

I trust the next four years will see a steady roll out of election promises.

Due to the high levels of unemployment and the decade (plus) we have been waiting for any action on Great Keppel Island, CQ voters have every right to expect that the promised allocation of $25million for infrastructure for the island will be the top priority for spending in early 2018.

This will make for a merry Christmas and a happy new year for all the voters of Central Queensland.

Brett Svendsen

Zilzie

Time to define a multinational

A MULTINATIONAL company must be defined!

They're using all sorts of tricks. Calling themselves "Australian owned” if some Aussies have a few shares.

Or, if Australians do happen to own the company but source their wares overseas, they use it to infer that their products are made here. You get the drift.

A multinational must be a company not fully owned by Aussies. If all its products aren't made in Australia from locally produced agricultural products or raw materials, it's a multinational. All multinational companies must pay an operating fee of 25% of their turnover, plus tax, to operate in Australia!

We have to make sure multinational monopolies can no longer force Aussies out of business, or sell shoddy goods or unhygienic foodstuffs to Australians!

Frank Brown

Richmond

Look behind you, Premier Palaszczuk

PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk quipped in a recent news conference that she had "stared down Campbell Newman and stared down Tim Nichols, who's next?”. Well Annastacia, I may be wrong but perhaps Jacki Trad?

Cameron Smyth

Rockhampton

Cost of living horse has bolted

BACK to work for the Queensland Labor Government, with smiles all around, backed by unionists, without whom they wouldn't have crossed the line!

Not on their own merit, for the past three years have been a disaster, with the deficit climbing to a historical $81 billion, with no hope of receding.

The cost of living, rising faster than coastal resort developments, has bitten into every household's ability to pay not only rent, but food and fuel, let alone a "Happy Christmas” season!

Many are finding such celebrations, with shops at their pushiest and fuel the high point of the cycle, beyond the pale.

All the hype only adds to the pain of the three million Australians living below the poverty line. Children with parents under financial stress go without life's basics, while the fuel industry exploits every household dollar, making it impossible to break from the daily grind.

Supermarkets have used this time of year to raise the price of milk products 10%, without compensation to farmers or shoppers. Good timing! We have been warned future household water bills are next to be hit, with rise after rise!

Is there nothing sacred at Christmas?

Is the Grinch going to steal our security and make living in the "Lucky Country” far beyond the three million already facing such challenges?

Where do we go, while large corporations and successive governments reap with impunity what we have sown year after year?

So much for equity and social justice rhetoric!

The cost of living horse has bolted.

Eloise Rowe

Tannum Sands

Rodeo is legal

form of cruelty

ANYONE with an ounce of compassion would have been horrified to see the footage of the bull who suffered catastrophic injuries in the rodeo at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre last week as he bucked and then twisted and fell as his hind leg snapped.

But what happened isn't unusual in an industry where abusive treatment is standard practice in order to guarantee that the paying public see some "action”.

Bulls are shocked with electric prods, viciously kicked and violently slammed into the ground and the spurs and bucking straps cinched around their abdomens cause these frightened animals to buck.

Extensive bruising and internal injuries are common, and necks, backs and leg bones are often shattered. We do not live in the Wild West and we should not be tolerating cruelty as a deranged form of amusement.

As long as what the RSPCA calls "a legalised form of cruelty” continues, Australia will be known to the rest of the world not just as "down under” but as downright backwards.

Desmond Bellamy

PETA Australia

Originally published as LETTERS: Congratulations, now move on GKI