Support for the Adani coal mine in Queensland is surreal. It's as if the government wants to destroy the climate and the reef, and throw away $1billion. As if dumping millions of tonnes of dredge spoil on the reef, pumping millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, pillaging artesian water and destroying rare species habitat weren't enough. Never mind that India's Finance Ministry is investigating Adani over bribery allegations, or that India's government is planning to phase out the use of coal, or that Adani has hidden its liabilities through a complicated structure ultimately owned by companies in the Cayman Islands. It's always better to shoot the messenger, in this case the ABC, and claim, as Resources Minister Matt Canavan has, that the biggest coal mine in the southern hemisphere will be "good for the environment".
Andrew McKenna, Gisborne, New Zealand
Illustration: Jim PavlidisCredit: Jim Pavlidis
I wish this were a bad dream
Arctic ice is in unprecedented melt, global temperature for 2016 set to surpass the records of the two previous years and our greenhouse gas emissions rise relentlessly. All credible policies to cut emissions ruled out by the climate sceptic-dominated Turnbull government. Nationals senator Matt Canavan spruiks the emissions time bomb that is the Adani mine and our PM offers to prop it up with $1billion despite a supposed budget crisis. I wish this were all just a bad dream.
Michael Hassett, Blackburn
Barnaby gives all kids same present
What's Barnaby Joyce giving his kids for Christmas? More extreme weather, including drought and heatwaves, and an increasingly unstable world due to the ravages of climate change. Trouble is, he's giving the same gift to your kids and your grandkids. We never found out what deal he signed to form government with Mr Turnbull, but Joyce is the tail wagging the Coalition dog and he's a climate sceptic.
Joan Reilly, Surrey Hills
Coal hurts pockets and bodies
It is time we faced the full cost of coal mining. This includes not just the financial cost of mine rehabilitation, but the significant health costs to the local and wider communities who are exposed to pollution during each phase of energy production, be it the mining, transporting, washing, burning or disposal of coal end-products. Society bears this hidden financial burden as the costs are not factored into the price of electricity. Yet politicians continue to advocate for the coal industry and dismiss moves by states and the public for a swift transition to cleaner, renewable energy. An honest and worthwhile discussion about future energy sources must include all present and future costs. We will all pay dearly in health and productivity if climate change is not adequately incorporated in our energy decisions.
Dr Eugenie Kayak, Doctors for the Environment Australia
Cutting sulphur a drop in the ocean
By releasing a paper arguing for reducing the amount of sulphur in petrol (The Age, 22/12), Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg seems to be ignoring the more pressing need to reduce use of petrol itself. Certainly, cutting the sulphur content of petrol will reduce acid rain and asthma-inducing sulphur dioxide. But sulphur in petrol is measured in parts per million. Compare that to the 2.3 kilograms of CO2 released from burning one litre of petrol. Given we face such a dire climate prognosis unless we wean ourselves off fossil fuels, it hardly seems worth investing in new refinery technology to make our hydrocarbons a little cleaner. Mr Frydenberg, I'd be delighted to pay a little more for petrol if I knew you were investing the money in public transport and in ensuring our new electric cars are powered by renewable energy.
Tim Read, Brunswick East
THE FORUM
Please clear off, Cory
That Cory Bernardi would leave the Liberals and form his own party is surely on Mr Turnbull's Christmas wish-list. Turnbull would love to be able to hold the political centre and leave the extreme ends to the likes of Bernardi and the anti-capitalist Greens. The political spectrum is like a bell curve with the majority of the votes in the middle but Turnbull has been pulled to the right by Bernardi, Christensen, Abetz, Andrews and Abbott, who worry about the 5 per cent at the extreme. Bernardi should go and take those others with him. This will enable Turnbull to get on with what his heart wants on same-sex marriage and other policies. Please, Cory, do the party a favour and clear off.
Douglas Potter, Surrey Hills
Speak up for residents
It is not just Derryn Hinch who should "speak up" regarding Victoria receiving only 7.7 per cent of federal infrastructure funding (The Age, 21-22/12). The voters in Menzies need our longstanding member, Kevin Andrews, to do the same. His safe Liberal seat is getting insufficient funding to meet its rapidly growing needs, including the massive increase in apartment building construction. There is no funding for the sorely needed Doncaster Rail. Our only source of public transport is frequent, but often uncomfortable and overcrowded buses, which have to share congested routes with scores of luxury cars just to get to the Eastern freeway. Our Sydney-centric federal government is not helping Menzies at all.
William Matthewson, Doncaster East
Syria: casting doubt
Ruby Hamad ("In Syria, the truth is a moving target", 22/12) identifies problems for consumers of Western media in understanding the conflict in Syria, and Aleppo in particular. The lack of independent journalists on the ground has left the way open for "sources" with other agendas to frame the news, such as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (one man operating from Coventry, UK), with links to rebels associated with al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups. These groups are funded and supplied by external players intent on regime change, not resolving a "civil war" they themselves have fuelled. Middle East veteran journalists such as Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn are among those casting serious doubt on the version of events we've received so far.
Keith Wiltshire, Carlton
Nurture the early years
Youth crime is linked to adverse early-life conditions. In America, home-support programs during pregnancy and for the first two years of life have halved adolescent crime rates, compared with unsupported families. Severe stress in pregnancy doubles the likelihood of a child developing emotional and behavioural disorders associated with crime and poor school performance. Some 30 per cent of domestic violence starts in pregnancy. Children put into state care are also over-represented in juvenile detention and, later, adult prisons. Child abuse and neglect are strong predictors of offending.
Developing brains and nervous systems need healthy conditions. Rising poverty and inequality exacerbate all adverse factors. Modern societies also frequently lack the extended family and community volunteers who once helped support young families.
Jails and youth detention cost $110,000 and $220,000 a year per prisoner respectively. In Victoria, almost 60 per cent of 17- to 20-year-olds return to prison within two years. We need to prevent the vicious circle starting. Investing in the early years is a good start.
Barbara Chapman, Hawthorn
A time to reflect
Yes, Christmas is a time to share love and happiness. It is also a time to reflect on those less fortunate than most of us. I think of those suffering in detention centres, those in hospitals and the very old in aged-care facilities, often all alone. I think of the homeless, those living in poverty, those without family or friends, those suffering from mental illness and all those who find no joy in Christmas at all. So just spend a minute or two and reflect on all the people in the world who are suffering in one way or another.
Hugh Paton, Toorak
Challenging comfort
Candida Moss' mythbusting article (Comment, 23/12) is nothing new but clears the way for the central Christmas oxymoron – the splendour above kings and emperors wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a feed-trough! Such a challenging comfort is explored in many carols over the years but especially in times of political upheaval and uncertainty. See It came upon a midnight clear (1848) and Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour (in China in the 1930s).
Alan Gijsbers, Lower Templestowe
Look beyond 'truth'
Maybe if we focused less on the "truth" of the Christmas story via DNA and paternity testing (Letters, 23/12) and looked instead at its mythology and symbolism we would find it remains a story of immense significance. The story of the birth of a great leader from humble roots has been told in similar ways – sometimes with the same symbols of stars, virgin births and journeys – in different cultures and religions across the planet since humans told stories. Looking at what the story may mean about the human condition is a useful thing – even in a post-religious, scientific world.
Louisa Ennis, Thornbury
Pick and choose
The Australian Christian Lobby believes in a virgin birth, ultimate resurrection and other assorted miracles but they doubt evidence-based information given out by the police regarding the car bomb in Canberra.
Gary Sayer, Warrnambool
PM banks on miracle
Tomorrow two faiths celebrate miracles – Christmas Day and the first day of Hanukkah. If ever there was someone who needs a miracle it is Jobson Growth.
Michael Kino, Caulfield North
Gift of a job
It may be within the gift of the Attorney General to distribute sinecures on federal review boards to favoured failed politicians and other lickspittles, but in my view, without legitimate selection processes, the process is corrupt. Those who accept such sinecures must realise that they themselves have not secured jobs on merit. Ah, yes, and the age of entitlement is over.
Andrew Neeson, Launceston, Tasmania
Devoid of belief
Our Prime Minister is so devoid of any belief system that all he can raise his voice to support is the republic issue. Not climate change. Not the appalling treatment of refugees. Just a dull inevitability of no great significance to our lives or our morality.
Ramesh Rajan, Camberwell
Matter of degree
I appreciate Barbara Burns' concern about changes to pensions (Letters, 23/12), but a passive income of $24,412 per year ($469 per week) if you own your home, have access to age/pensioner discounts and do not have dependants compares well to the truly unfair scenario faced by young people. Most have little hope of being able to buy a home so are destined to forever pay rent. They are earning little more than $24,412 with no job security. For many, only casual or part-time work is available despite all efforts to find full-time work, and what bank provides a mortgage under those circumstances? It seems many young people, despite working hard and having incurred high education and training fees, will never have the opportunities and security that home-owning pensioners enjoy.
Emma Borghesi, Mount Eliza
Asset is to be spent
Complaints about pension cuts assume the asset must remain untouched and only its income be used. The invested half-million or so is presumably destined to become legacy on death. Why should heirs benefit at the expense of taxpayers? The asset could be drawn on gradually to top up the pension, still leaving a reasonable inheritance along with the pensioner's dwelling.
Anne Riddell, Mount Martha
No way to compete
Alan Cotterell (Letters, 22/12) claims "our manufacturing sector has gone offshore to avoid our occupational health and safety, environment and labour laws". The reason our manufacturing has fled is the failure of governments since the 1970s to recognise that the "level playing field", that wonderful soundbyte paraded around Canberra, ignores that a worker in Asia earning $US1 per hour will always make cheaper products than an Australian worker earning $US17 per hour. Tariffs used to protect countries with higher standards of living; their removal has seen manufacturing become uneconomical.
John Strahan, Cheltenham
AND ANOTHER THING
Politics
What Bernardi and Christensen regard as a threat to leave the Liberal Party, others (most?) would regard as a relief.
Barrie Bales, Woorinen North
By removing the phones of refugees in detention, Mr Dutton wants to ensure they receive no Christmas messages (Letters, 23/12).
Hans Paas, Castlemaine
Apparently the Liberal Party's stocking fillers this year include Trivial Pursuit and He Who Dares Wins.
Joan Segrave, Healesville
Adani
On its elaborate company structures, tax avoidance measures and the $1 billion grant: Mr Turnbull, "Please explain".
Robert Geary, Brighton
If the Adani mine goes ahead history will likely view Turnbull as a greater ecological vandal than Howard or Abbott. Some legacy from the empty suit.
Russell Kidd, Carnegie
It seems Adani has dug itself a hole in India, so why start in Australia?
Kevan Porter, Alphington
The government should be accused of "fake due diligence".
Tom Vanderzee, Coburg
Elsewhere
As a committed Republican I shudder at the thought of a popularly elected president. Perhaps yet another comeback for John Farnham?
Edna Russell, Ocean Grove
Might those outraged at the decision to temporarily accommodate the Parkville lads at Barwon offer to take one home over Christmas?
Peter McCarthy, Mentone
Many of the children transferred to Barwon had not even been to court, and not all participated in the riots.
Jenny Callaghan, Hawthorn
Either either, either or: octopuses or octopodes (23/12).
Jim McLeod, Sale
So Jesus would've been a girl (Letters, 23/12). Shesus!
Pete Dowe, Millgrove