Insurance Costs Must Be Stopped
Illawarra Mercury
Tuesday October 7, 2003
I WRITE in reply to the article by Antony Field ``Insurance threat to surf patrol future" (Mercury, October 1). Surf-lifesavers have for many decades been part of Australian life with our love for warm weather and beaches.
They have rescued thousands of people after more than half a century of good work and now this is in serious jeopardy because of insurance.
We pay insurance on almost everything and it is both expensive and manipulative. Insurance companies earn millions of dollars each year.
Now, if insurance is destined to ruin the good work of people and organisations by preventing events going ahead without some type of cover, then insurance companies and laws need to be stopped.
This is utter madness. Instead of threatening the future of surf-lifesaving because of the so-called need for insurance cover, why doesn't the insurance industry make a healthy donation to the Surf Life Saving Association?
-ADRIAN DEVLIN,
Fairy Meadow.
Band together
IT is 14 years since I ``retired" and I have never been busier.
Like many retired people I went straight from working for money to working for nothing - as a volunteer, and fighting as one too. As another volunteer and Friend of the ABC pointed out, we all seem to be fighting on too many fronts.
At present there are 100s of things where governments seem to be trying their best to destroy the fabric of any kind of ``civil" society. Here's 10 to go on with:
1. The health care system, especially Medicare bulk-billing.
2. Attacks on the unemployed, eg the latest clampdown where people's benefits will be cut off if they don't answer two or so phone calls (how do people on no income afford a phone?).
3. Making pensioners pay back thousands of dollars which the government gave them in error (in some cases more than 10 years ago!).
4. Destruction of the higher education system and especially the integrity of universities and the TAFE system.
5. The proposed changes via the Charities Bill to silence even the last few community organisations that dare to speak out or ``advocate".
6. The trend for governments (at all levels) to fragment social services by putting any surviving service providers/workers (such as health, migrants etc) on a circuit from one place to another. Said governments don't want to fund ``bricks and mortar" - except for their own pollie palaces of course.
7. The destruction and exploitation of the environment - often for no reason (eg the spraying and mowing of places like Centennial Parklands), not even for agriculture. The reluctance of farmers etc to take up proven sustainable practices.
8. The absolute abdication of government's responsibility to do things that require any kind of just or sensible redistribution (eg water, wealth).
9. Overall diminution of free speech unless it's for shock jocks and scandalous pollies.
10. Last but not least - the ABC is pretty much the target of most of the above trends and it is one of the few arenas where voices and ideas from the community (other than Howard's little mates...) can still be heard to squeak.
It seems the only way is for all of us to get together - teachers, students, patients, doctors, voters and voteless, asylum seekers, judges, prisoners, refugees, rednecks - for the real common good.
Community organisations have been sucked in to competing with each other - public organisations and services have colluded in privatisation, commercial in confidence and a slew of other horrors.
Media (except some parts of ABC) have swallowed government press releases whole without even digesting them ... anyway you can fill in the rest!
In a nutshell, we must wake up and and speak out otherwise fear and division will emasculate all of us!
-P FERGUSON,
Berkeley.
A real winner
MAY I draw your attention to the article ``PM announces line-up for next year's election" (Mercury, September 30).
You can't imagine my dismay with your story which portrayed Danna Vale, Minister for Veterans Affairs, as a ``loser".
I am sure the many tens of thousands of our surviving war veterans don't hold the same opinion.
This reshuffle will allow the minister to focus on supporting our war heroes.
No, Danna Vale is not a loser, our veterans are the winners.
-LEE EVANS,
Loftus.
Stress relief
A MERCURY article on October 2 states: ``people living in areas of high traffic density are more likely to suffer increased levels of depression, anxiety and pain, new research has found".
The researchers obviously didn't talk to any residents of Lawrence Hargrave Dr.
If the RTA reads this, they will probably use it as an excuse to keep our road closed forever, on the basis they are reducing our stress levels.
-KEVIN EPPS,
Coalcliff.
Where now?
PRIOR to the last state election, the press and just about every man and his dog believed the proposed policies of Bob Carr and his henchmen.
Now, 28 days plus later, the latest bulletin from the Labor palace and the man himself, is that Mr Carr will not be going to Canberra. Hurrah!
The Carr isn't even out of the garage and we have the press and just about every woman and her cat not believing him.
News polls question the for and against of Mr Carr going to Canberra and who would you prefer (ie Carr or Howard) but if Mr Carr said ``no" to Canberra, why is everyone and their pets in a tizz about where the man is going? My preference really doesn't matter as long as he goes somewhere else.
-BARBARA WITTE,
Barrack Heights.
© 2003 Illawarra Mercury
Share This