Faith
I HAVE read recent letters to The Examiner about religion, and I have been wondering about the following. For their faith in the existence of God, Christians are relying on events that happened 2000 years ago.
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But many people are of the opinion 'seeing is believing'. In this digital age, when anything newsworthy from anywhere on Earth may be seen on TV almost immediately, why doesn't God do a follow-up and conclusively demonstrate his existence in some (awe-inspiring) way?
This must surely boost the number of believers, and the video could be replayed at any time in the future.
Wayne Vertigan, Launceston.
Being disingenuous
IN RESPONSE to Ralph Marshall's letter, (January 10) suggesting that I was disingenuous regarding the stimulus response, I don't believe I was. I think he should look at what the "Howard, Costello" government left in the kitty for the Labor government to squander on $900 bonuses to anyone that put in a tax return and people that were deceased, etc.
The IMF and the OECD, as you suggest, recognised the response as "one of the best responses on the planet". That was obviously after Wayne Swan telling the Australian people about his first surplus? You believe that Australia avoided the recession by "building the education revolution"?
Gee whizz that went well. How much has Australia regressed in the past 10 years. Money doesn't make kids smarter, school halls don't make kids smarter – good teachers do.
Steve Rogers, South Launceston.
Sea-level rise
M. CHUGG’s letter (January 11), which effectively denies the existence of human-induced climate change and sea-level rise, is a bewildering collection of unrelated "facts", most of which are wrong. For example, he claims that sea-level records at Fort Denison, in Sydney, and Port Arthur "do not show any significant rise over almost 200 years".
In fact, the scientific literature clearly shows that sea level at Fort Denison rose about 6cm over the past century and sea level at Port Arthur rose about 17cm since 1841 (I know - I was one of the researchers who made these latter observations). These are both significant amounts of rise.
I recommend that M. Chugg takes some time to actually read some of the published science of climate change before he makes further sweeping claims on the subject - a good start would be the various summary documents of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
John Hunter, West Hobart.
Milking taxpayers
IF COALITION Minister Steve Ciobo really thinks he can justify milking taxpayers to pay for his attendance at major sporting events, he needs a reality check. Regardless of whether such trips are "within the rules", they are outside values and expectations prevailing in the community.
Common decency alone should preclude MPs from asking taxpayers to fork out to attend football/cricket/polo matches, and were he not traumatised by the Opposition, our Prime Minister should take the high road and sack Mr Ciobo, Julie Bishop and Mathias Cormann without further delay.
Bruce Lindsay, Scottsdale.
United Nations
AUSTRALIA is a member of the United Nations. The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is an avowed Republican. Kim Beazley in federal parliament in 1990 said: ‘The United Nations has given the federal government a mandate of ownership of housing, property, farms and business, to government control once the Republic has been proclaimed’. Methinks you have some questions to answer for, Prime Minister.