Travel rorts
IT SEEMS that there is no end to what can only be regarded as systematic abuse of taxpayer funds to support members of parliament’s lifestyles. Really, Steve Ciobo would have us believe that claiming travel expenses to attend a grand final is allowable as he was there in his capacity as a cabinet secretary and was involved in serious business discussions with his hosts along with two ministers. I would love to have been a fly on the wall.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A. Carter, Mowbray.
Our troubled world
ONE wonders at the ineffectiveness of our world body, the United Nations. Set up in 1945 to replace the discredited League of Nations, it has proved to be totally ineffective in maintaining a peaceful world. Its success in the Korean conflict has not been replicated in troubled places such as Syria, Libya, Yemen and South Sudan. The overriding problem is that the major powers are too often at loggerheads and as each of them have major armament industries selling weapons to any disparate group that can raise the funds, peace has little chance.
What can we do to bring sense to our world? Surely it is time the UN had real teeth to stop the world’s petty tyrants? Amidst this world chaos we should be so thankful that we live in ordered, peaceful, multi-cultural Australia.
Dick James, Launceston.
President
WHAT a contrast. On the one hand we had the eloquence and dignity of the retiring president and first lady’s farewell speeches. Then we get the bombastic bullying childishness of President-elect Donald Trump’s press conference. A journalist asks a question, to be told in effect, “I’m not talking to you ‘cos you said nasty things about me. so there!” The average child stops saying that sort of thing by the time they’re 10 or so.
Ralph Marshall, in response to Malcolm Scott’s letter, writes that “At least the US is grown up enough to choose one of its own as head of state”. Look what it got them. God help them.