Lettersto the editor

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Discipline is lacking in families

I FULLY agree with Geoff Royle (letters, June 2, 2023).

Parental control, guidance and discipline are what is lacking in a lot of families in recent years.

Peter Nielsen, Gordonvale

Scaremongering about the Voice

A CORE 20 per cent of Queenslanders opposed the apology to the stolen generation.

The same 20 per cent opposed ‘Closing the Gap’.

Twenty per cent opposed the Mabo and Wik judgements.

Twenty per cent opposed paying them equal wages.

Twenty per cent voted against giving them the vote in 1967.

Twenty per cent opposed letting them leave their reservation compounds.

Twenty per cent opposed stopping the dispersal killings (including 200 men, women and children near Mackay in 1867) of Aboriginals who ‘trespassed’ onto land taken by squatters.

Twenty per cent opposed stopping the poisoned flour baiting exterminations of the early 1800s.

Will we let these scaremongers influence us again?

Sean McGinn, Clifton Breach

Phasing out cheques is wrong

PHASING out cheques will be detrimental to rural and regional transactions and their respective local economies. The Federal Treasurer has announced a complete phasing out of cheques by 2030.

The Katter Australia Party has continuously reminded corporate leaders and governments of the importance of bricks and mortar banking, as well as cash, to the rural and regional communities they represent.

The statistics, which are often presented along with these decisions, don’t accurately portray the needs of the demographics of their communities and are typically skewed to the metropolis.

They’ll tell you only 10 per cent are using cash here, or that cheque transactions are down by a certain percentage.

Well in the rural and regional areas, this decision definitely raises concerns about the impact on farmers, small businesses and pensioners – where cheque usage is higher.

What right do you have to stop us from making a contract with another person? You take away cash and cheques from those that rely on this means, you take away the economy of a regional town.

We have the right to control our money – physical cash and cheques give us that control. Banks do not, our balances are controlled by the banks.

We fear “phasing out cheques” is a stepping stone toward phasing out cash all together.

We will do everything humanly possible to resist tenaciously the abolition of cheques.

We will be lobbying the crossbench and the opposition and I hope and pray that we can get unanimity to tenaciously oppose this.

Federal Kennedy MP Bob Katter and Hinchinbrook MP Nick Dametto