rates hot talk for Ag Committee

THE impact high rates are having on farmers has been the main topic of conversation at the first two meetings of Tablelands Regional Council’s new Agricultural Advisory Committee.

Chair Cr David Clifton said the committee had made a good start and he was buoyed by what had happened so far.

“The Agricultural Advisory Committee has now had two meetings and is making an attempted, but so far successful, start in creating a relationship and beginning to understand some of the problems facing agriculture,” he said.

Deputy Mayor Cr Kevin Cardew agreed the committee was working to date and had the potential to be an effective way to communicate with the industry and get direct feedback.

“The committee is coming along pretty good and I have had some positive feedback from some of the committee members,” he said.

“If we can make it work, it will be a great asset for us and a real conduit to the agricultural community.”

Last year, around 80 farmers gathered to protest constant increases in their rates, but council cited significantly higher land valuations for the rate rises. Mayor Rod Marti then gave an assurance that council would look at changing the rating categories of F and G to try to lessen the impact of the valuations.

That exercise is underway and members of the Agricultural Advisory Committee had the opportunity at its second meeting to engage with consultants, The AEC Group, about the report they are preparing on the differential rating categories.

Tragedy if the Voice to Parliament fails

I WOULD like to thank Ms Prescott and Messrs Jones and English for their recent letters regarding the referendum on a proposed “Voice to Parliament” for Indigenous Australians.

Mr Jones quotes the constitutional changes from 1967, 50 years ago. Constitutional change provides a framework from which the parliament of the day develops legislation. This is where the detail of policy will be essential for better outcomes for Indigenous Australians. Not in the Constitution.

Ms Prescott is concerned about money being “wasted” by Indigenous departments and organisations and calls for them to be “cleaned out”. This “white fellas know best” attitude is grossly patronising and provides the precise reason why Indigenous people need a say in matters that affect them via a representative body to Federal Parliament but does not have a veto over the decisions of parliament

Given the level of misrepresentation and misinformation of Australian history since colonisation, I agree that education is fundamental to moving all people forward. Perhaps Mr English could educate himself on the adverse effects of colonisation on First Nations people and ways to resolve these issues.

Mr English in reference to the US mentions, “they now occupy a fair share of all positions available to them” and “they have provided one President”. Who are “they” and who is the one president “they” have provided?

Further, there is no proposal to establish another level of government, “a third chamber”. This is a nonsense argument put forward by the National Party. The Voice will offer advice and that advice may be accepted or rejected by the parliament of the day.

The real travesty would be for the Voice proposal to fail. For the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population to continue to have significantly lower life expectancy, higher rates of poverty and incarceration and lower educational and health outcomes than the majority of Australians.

These are not lifestyle choices. By choosing to promote these same old lies, the status quo will be maintained and all Australians will be poor for it.

D. Heers BARRINE

He’s not my Member

ONCE again, our local Federal member has expressed views (Letters to the Editor 18/01/2023 – Pell’s death reinforces Christian persecution) that demonstrate poor taste, are divisive in the extreme and display no empathy for survivors of child sexual abuse, including many constituents in the electorate he purports to represent.

Lest we forget, a whiff of the odious dogged Pell to the end. Pell’s Royal Commission testimony contained an admission that he did little to stop child sexual abuse; Pell chose to attend Court supporting a known paedophile in Gerald Ridsdale; and Pell manufactured the Melbourne Response to silence victims and protect the church.

If these are the actions of (in our member’s words) a “good and powerful” man “chosen to overcome the dreadful renaissance-type problems” (whatever that means), little wonder Christianity is in decline across the western world.

Colours are pinned to the member’s mast as he goes on to defend, (i) Peter Hollingsworth, another senior Christian churchman who chose to support a predatory priest but not his young victim, (ii) Israel Folau, whose “evangelical” words of intolerance and hate belong strictly in the privacy of his own home, and (iii) his “Manly Heroes” who similarly prefer persecution over acceptance, staunchly holding to the credo that might is right.

But, as Seneca the Younger observed over 2000 years ago, “religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful”.

Not content with defending the indefensible, the member then takes aim at the “fascist state of Victoria” and “pygmy” Dan Andrews because “there are very few people in Australian history that have banned people for demonstrating”.

Our local member obviously needs reminding that he was a member of BjelkePetersen’s government that on 4 September 1977 proclaimed, “the day of the political street march is over ... Don’t bother to apply for a permit. You won’t get one. That’s government policy now”. And it was; such is the inconvenient truth – pot, kettle, black?

Our local member has never been one to let truth get in the way of a good story. His lame half-truths and mangled English might tickle some and embolden others.

But, many will simply shake their heads in despair, wondering how any person in his position can display such duplicity, divisiveness and blind stupidity. He’s not my member.

N.I.J Tucker MALANDA

Here we go again!

THE Mareeba Bypass was proposed around 50 years ago around the time the high level bridge over the Barron River was built and the bypass to Atherton constructed.

Since then. there have been studies, consultations, reviews, surveys and surveyings and multiple promises made, all to no avail.

This will be no different. Millions have been and are being spent and wasted pretending to be doing something.

TMR knows that this bypass will not be built. We know that TMR knows that it will not be built.

I dare you to prove me wrong.

Roger Piagno MAREEBA