Aid
WHILE I agree with Jeff McKinnon that eradicating extreme poverty is one of the best ways of reducing the number of displaced persons seeking refuge in our country and that “a healthy aid budget is in our national interest”, I think there still is a moral imperative for us to increase our aid budget even if it were not.
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Our nation promised at the UN Millennial Summit, to contribute 50 cents out of every $100 of our gross national income by 2016 to help reach the internationally adopted eight millennial development goals. The latest budget reveals we will contribute just 22 cents of every $100 of GNI.
We teach our kids to keep their promises, and we know that a safe society depends on trustworthiness. So when will our governments lead by example and keep the promises we made to the poorest of the poor?
Bruce Dutton, Norwood.
Eggs
AUSTRALIAN consumers looking to buy eggs will find supermarket shelves bare for at least the next couple of months as retailers struggle to implement even the woefully inadequate protections of the new free-range regulations.
Consumer affairs ministers around the country have agreed that factory farms can still call their products free range up to a density of 10,000 hens a hectare – allowing each bird just one square metre of space.
Even this minimal new standard has apparently proven difficult for producers to meet, proving that free range was always just a marketing slogan.
The model code of practice, published by the CSIRO which set the limit at 1500 hens a hectare, is apparently just a joke to the egg industry. Australians are already struggling with a barrage of misleading and vague labels on eggs, including barn laid, free to roam and cage-free, all of which tell the consumer little about how the chickens were actually farmed.
And let's not forget that for each hen confined to a short, miserable life, a male chick has been killed by gassing, suffocation or being minced alive, as male babies are considered the waste products of this industry.
Desmond Bellamy, Special Projects Coordinator PETA Australia, Byron Bay NSW.
Detention
IN THE floods some of our neighbours, family and friends have recently experienced fear, homelessness and loss. It would be unthinkable for citizens, volunteers and emergency service workers to be unresponsive to such tragedy.
More than ever before in our history, we are global citizens. We know about the tragedy of persecution and humanitarian disasters in our region. We know there are good reasons for some of our regional neighbours to seek political asylum in our country.
I was encouraged to read Jeff McKinnon's opinion piece, calling for an end to mandatory detention by creating effective regional processing alternatives in Indonesia and Malaysia. Australians have until recently been good global citizens - it's not too late to do our part.
