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It beggars belief that the Queensland government has granted Adani unlimited water removal rights from the Great Artesian Basin for 60 years, plus approval for a floodwater-harvesting 10gigalitre dam. The aquifer lies beneath prime agricultural land. This decision accentuates the folly of giving the mine the go-ahead. Allowing this coal to be sold will exacerbate unprecedented global warming while the use of the groundwater will compromise farmers' livelihoods and Australia's food security. The groundwater could be used at a rate beyond the Basin's capacity to refill yet Adani will not be answerable to any one about its water usage.
The Great Artesian Basin stretches from North Queensland to South Australia. Who can say what will be the effects of the water withdrawal on farmers in NSW and SA who also depend on the basin? Ecosystems are complex. With weather and rainfall patterns already changing rapidly, we can be certain there will be unforeseen medium and longer-term effects. We all should have a say in the Adani situation, given that its consequences will be awful.
Jill Dumsday, Ashburton
Hollow ring to politicians' good wishes
In the wake of Cyclone Debbie, how can the government maintain its $1 billion support for the mine and rail line? With ever-increasing payouts for floods and fires, surely insurance companies are lobbying governments and banks to withdraw all support for the mine. Insurance and the reinsurance companies know the threat posed by coal and climate change to fuel ever bigger cyclones and floods. When all the rest of us are left high and dry, the Adani family will be long gone, having siphoned off their billions to the Cayman Islands. The heartfelt wishes of politicians to the victims of the cyclone and floods are appreciated, but have a hollow ring due to their blind adherence to what is exacerbating these once-natural disasters. Reactionary ideologues are the last people we need to have their fingers in the till.
James Kilby, Rye
You say ideology; I say good economics
The utter unfitness of the government to tackle energy challenges is obvious in its ludicrous equation of renewable energy advocacy with "ideology". Harold Mitchell is just the latest business person to take a pragmatic approach, (BusinessDay, 7/4). He understands that renewables make far more sense in a vast country where the power generation can be situated close to where it's needed. He recognises that our trading partners, China and India, are moving away from coal and that giving $1billion to Adani is a wasteful anachronism. Meanwhile, the Coalition scarcely mentions the science, which says we must urgently ditch fossil fuels. Call it ideology if you are a desperate Coalition politician, hamstrung by scientific illiterates. The rest of us call it good economics, common sense, self preservation and morality.
Lynne Holroyd, East Hawthorn
Move beyond the 'scientific cringe'
Scientific advances have exceeded the understanding capacity of the average person and, significantly, many politicians'. Thus the rise of "post-truth" and "alternative facts". In the public domain science has become waylaid and scientists marginalised. One answer is to involve people more in science and provide better science teaching to enable an understanding of how science uses experimental evidence. Importantly, this includes the role of doubt, because issues are often not black and white but in a state of flux. Recognition of this is one reason science has achieved such amazing progress. Making science relevant to politics is a way for Australia to move beyond the "scientific cringe" impairing our capacity to tackle numerous environmental and health issues. Embracing science will enable us to to act more sustainably and change our self-destructive habits.
Leigh Ackland, Deepdene
THE FORUM
Social fabric eroding
The escalating numbers of young people with mental health problems is alarming on many levels but the recommendation by the CEO of headspace to provide more services is only half the answer. We cannot pretend that the increase is independent of an underlying despair with policies that look after the government's power base while eroding our social fabric: housing affordability, employment and fair rates of pay, equity in health and education, poor treatment of our most disadvantaged, challenges to Section 18C and climate, climate, climate – and that's just in Australia.
Young people are often the canaries in the coalmine, reflecting broader family distress. High rates of mental ill-health also reflect a broader social disease as young people look to the future. For all of us with these concerns, reclaiming hope and finding a voice and a receptive ear to shift the social and political discourse will do much to alleviate the distress of young people – and the anxieties harboured by the older generation that supports them.
Lisa Gundish, Malvern
83 and also anxious
No wonder young people are depressed and anxious, with the government ignoring global warming, overseeing a widening gap between rich and poor, and responding to serious need overseas with an aid budget at the lowest level ever. I am 83 and depressed, too.
Shirley Gunson, Northcote
Wasted Cash
Michaelia Cash "wasted" her column (Comment, 7/4). She could have justified the government's position on penalty rates, and explained how its position would benefit the economy and workers generally. Instead her whole article could be summed up by: "Labor can't criticise us because they did it first."
Ms Cash's criticism may well be correct, or maybe Labor has reassessed and changed its mind. Whatever the case, her article is typical of the government's focus on attacking the opposition instead of governing for the good of all Australians. It is one of many reasons so many voters hold politicians in such contempt.
Sue James, Wantirna South
Insult to women
In supporting a cut to penalty rates, the government has stated: "In general, low-paid workers are more likely to be young, female and single" and that "low-paid employees are often found in high-income households". What an insult to women and their status in the working community. It beggars belief that such a view could be put forward in the 21st century. One could just as easily put forward the argument that politicians' wages should be frozen because in general, politicians are more likely to be older, male, married, well- established and from privileged backgrounds; and that politicians are often found in households that are not only "high income" but "inherently wealthy".
Cheryl Morrow, Vermont
A pub's clientele
How to explain the participants in the pub test supporting the company tax changes? That the only people who can afford the time and money to go to the pub during the day are Coalition voters; people who are against the changes are too poor to go to the pub; The Age chose pubs known for their support; people against the changes can't go to the pub because they are out working in poorly paid jobs; or all of the above?
Tony Kruger, Fitzroy
Saudi position indefensible
Yemen, the poorest Arab country, hosts almost 3 million refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons. A food importer, its people are starving to death, with 3.3 million acutely malnourished, due to Saudi-led bombing raids disabling vital Red Sea port facilities. Citing human rights violations and a high Yemeni civilian death toll, the EU Parliament last year supported a bloc-wide arms embargo on Saudi Arabia, while the Netherlands banned, and the US reduced, their arms sales to the Saudis. The legality of selling weapons to Saudi Arabia is under High Court challenge in the UK.
Yet the Turnbull government continues, in secret, to sell arms to the Saudis – an unconscionable and indefensible policy. And what is Labor's policy?
Barbara Chapman, Hawthorn
Bombs away, again
In the furore over the alleged use of poison gas by Syria's president, where are the facts? Where are the independent voices? How can unverified reports from a dysfunctional war zone where gangs of murderous fanatics are on the loose be accepted without question?
Some 14 years ago, the Blair/Bush/Howard troika convinced a sceptical public that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when there were none, triggering a war that spread and kept on spreading … all the way to Syria. The human fallout has been catastrophic. Today it's regime change and bombs away, yet again.
Joan Coxsedge, Balwyn North
Almost presidential
What is going on? Somewhat disconcertingly, I find myself admiring Donald Trump for his measured, appropriate, even compassionate speech in response to the Syrian chemical warfare atrocity. One might almost call it presidential. Who tampered with the parameters of reality?
Rowan Forster, Surrey Hills
Not looking for evidence
Keith Wiltshire (Letters, 7/4) states no evidence was found of Syrian government involvement in the 2013 sarin attacks. It is possible that no evidence was found because the UN mission wasn't looking for such evidence. According to the United Nation's own website: "It was the team's job to determine whether and to what extent chemical weapons were used, not who used them."
Colin Howard, Hawthorn East
Get on with life
I was watching the news and saw the flooding in Queensland and then saw the results of the bombing in Syria. Two very different problems but what was noticeable was Australians' expectation that "something should be done", while the Syrians seem resigned to their fate. Do we have a problem of always expecting too much and not just getting on with life?
Susan Regan, Eltham
Cart before the horse
Minister for Veterans Affairs Dan Tehan described the prospect of terrorism at the Anzac ceremony at Gallipoli as abhorrent, and it was why our defence force's brave men and women were fighting in Iraq and Syria. Isn't it more likely that terrorists might be planning an attack because our forces are operating there?
Russell Brown, Great Western
Inject sense into debate
Congratulations, Carolyn Cage (Comment, 6/4), for writing about your experience. The proposal for a medically supervised injecting centre is supported by the local community, Ambulance Victoria, alcohol and other drug workers, medical specialists, the coroner and other experts. We hope the government considers their opinions and acts in the best interests of all Victorians. The benefits of an injecting centre go far beyond decreasing and preventing the harms from overdoses. The benefits to society as a whole are significant and cost-effective.
An MSIC will not solve the drug "problem". Effective treatment requires a suite of services: including enhanced, easily accessible, public addiction services and more residential rehab. But the lack of a centre represents a significant failure of treatment services to provide evidence-based, effective and cost-effective interventions to a marginalised and vulnerable group.
Drs Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Keri Alexander, Shalini Arunogiri, Raymond Chan, Jon Cook, Matthew Frei, David Jacka, Dianne Kirby, Benny Monheit, Adam Pastor, Noel Plumley and Helen Sweeting and Professor Edward Ogden, specialists in addiction medicine
People deserve chance
Some 34 people die from drug overdoses in North Richmond, yet there's to be no trial of a supervised injecting facility. Eight lives are lost on Maroondah Highway between Yea and Merton over a seven-year period and millions are spent on roadworks over nine months to widen the road and install wire rope barriers. What does this say about how our community values lives? As a pharmacist who has worked with people with substance abuse issues I believe these people deserve a chance to turn their lives around.
Melinda Jackson, Alexandra
End timetable swindle
Thanks, Fiona Patten (Comment, 7/4), for telling us what many of us suspect: that tram performance data is largely self-reported by Yarra Trams itself. So it can claim, for example, that the No 19 tram I took to the city on Wednesday night reached its destination on time, even though 50 passengers were kicked off at Melbourne Central, three stops short of the advertised Flinders Street station destination. Such swindles occur frequently on the No 19 route and, I suspect, elsewhere. How does the government plan to stop it?
Mike Puleston, Brunswick
AND ANOTHER THING
Politics
Why don't the media ever interview the Minister for Long-Term Planning?
Adrian Newton, Brunswick East
"Family trusts shield wealthy": Who'd have thought.
Maureen Goldie, Blackwood, SA
Two great lies of the Howard era: children overboard and that a GST would stop the black economy.
John d'Helin, McCrae
Roll up to enjoy the benefits of Australia's most popular pastime – tax avoidance.
Annie Wilson, Inverloch
Day in ... Day out.
Chris Burgess, Port Melbourne
It seems Peter Dutton is re-inventing himself as a king maker and/or a leader in waiting. I really hope I am misreading the signals.
Bruce MacKenzie, South Kingsville
Yep, that'll work – kill more innocents in retaliation for the deaths of innocents.
Pip Denton, Kingsville
Some 77 days in and The Donald is into playing with "boys toys".
Lee Kennedy, Box Hill
Coal
Unlimited access to water won't clean Adani's coal.
Jenny Bone, Surrey Hills
Adani squeezes blood from political stone-heads and demands our last drop of water.
Merle Stewart, Blackburn
The TV ad says "Australian coal – making our future possible". They're right – our future used to be certain.
David Macilwain, Sandy Creek
Other matters
Says it all, really. Independent Schools Victoria chief Michelle Green regards advocacy for state schools as "ideological".
Barry Breen, Miners Rest
Wouldn't Hawke Lager be better named Silly old Bugger Bitter?
Maxwell Spence, Montmorency
As of yesterday morning there were eight winless AFL teams, yet the heat is on Nathan Buckley?
Bryan Fraser, St Kilda