Drug testing distraction
The Morrison government is using its proposal to drug test unemployed people on Newstart as a distraction from the its failure to repair the structural faults in the Australian labour market. There are many more unemployed and underemployed people than there are full-time job vacancies. This is particularly true in regional areas like ours. Many employers report the skill sets they need in newly created jobs are not available from the people who apply for those jobs. This is because the government has failed over many years to use the Vocational Education and Training (VET) system, including state TAFE systems, to provide affordable and accessible retraining opportunities for unemployed people in job skills areas needed in the emerging economy. Drug testing will achieve nothing and will actually divert much needed funds from job retraining programs. We should expect better from our governments.
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P. Mitchell, Narrawallee
Gloomy and offensive
On behalf of many "dinosaurs who have lost their relevance" (The Times, September 11) may I say that your editorial was gloomy, elitist, arrogant and offensive on many levels.
The editor needs only to do the fossil walk across Ulladulla foreshores to see that the process of evolution has been both wondrous and fraught. Where we now swim and play was once glacial ice flows. Across time, there have been many coolings and warmings of the planet, extinction events, new life emergence, and both climate challenges and rescue.
Two billion years ago the atmosphere filled with sulphur from volcanic action which threatened life on Earth. Along comes an army of stromatolites who save our story by breathing vast leagues of oxygen into the air. The descendants of this heroic cohort now bathe glorious and peaceful in the West Australian sunshine.
We don't need more people alarming the community about climate change. The process of evolution continues. The cave at Burrill was once 20km from the sea and its inhabitants ate a largely carnivorous diet. Five thousand years ago, the seas rose, the lake filled, and changed that diet to mostly seafood. Change is not a sentence. It is an opportunity.
I challenge the characterisation of CO2 as a poison. It is a life giving gas.
To condemn the views of a former Prime Minister and so many of my age group to irrelevance is arrogant. Yes, we need to clean our waterways and oceans; we need to manage our resources and energy mix intelligently; we need to plant a tree for every one we harvest; and yes the need for understanding of changing weather events is critical.
What we need to do is to educate our young people to interpret and communicate the maths and science of climate in a rational and not emotional way. Your editorial was the poorest form of journalism - sensational rubbish and it served only to cloud the issues in divisive rhetoric.
I hope we can have a sensible response to climate change, an inclusive debate built around evidence. And truth.
P. Fleming, Kings Point
Local would be better
I was recently sent by Milton Hospital to Shoalhaven Hospital Nowra for a CT scan. My family was able to take me there on Saturday morning instead of the offered hospital to hospital transfer. Milton had advised Shoalhaven that I was coming and my progress through triage to having my scan was swift.
Upon examination of the scans the Wollongong ICU suggested I should go there, a move which was delayed a day because of bed block at Wollongong. I received excellent and timely care, observation and treatment throughout. I would far prefer to have not needed to go to Nowra for the CT scan.