Letters to the Editor
EDDIE VENTLEY: I do feel for Ben Heard and the soul-searching one must do as part of a climate consultancy confronted with the motivations and machinations of the nuclear industry (The most inconvenient of truths, InDaily, 8 October 2013). Sounds like they have a cracker of a movie in their favour if Ben’s comments are anything to go by!
I would be interested to view such a movie to see how they address these issues: all raw materials are governed by world market pricing which inevitably rise due to demand – nothing to do with how much we have in the ground. Just another nice market boomer for the investors.
Safety issues – consider these past issues: Roxby Downs SA – radioactive leach by-product contaminates the drinking water; Gladstone SA – dynamite factory blew up due, possibly due to maintenance issues and/or age of machinery; Longfield VIC – near disaster of natural gas explosion for perhaps the same reason.
Why would any nuclear site in the world be any different? Its only a matter of years before an equivalent state of disinterest/disrepair is achieved … then … Chernobyl/Three Mile Island/Fukushima again.
Can you name any other known toxin that has as many far-reaching genetic effects, and persistence in the environment? And one without any known effective remediation or containment? The price of failure is irremediably high for nuclear – will the movie address this adequately?
BRIAN DONAGHY: “I discovered that basically everything I thought I knew about nuclear power was wrong.” Like what, for example?
RICHARD NEAGLE, Dignity for Disability president: David Washington (Public transport fix needs much more than price cuts, InDaily, 8 October 2013), offers us a timely and insightful analysis of public transport in Adelaide. Over the long weekend, Premier Weatherill flanked by Transport Services Minister Fox announced an increase in concession fares for metro tickets and a new 28 day travel pass. Big wow (not).
I am just astounded, for in each budget this Labor government has increased public transport fares, every single year, and now they are offering a little discount ahead of the election. People who are on fixed and low incomes must continue to receive a concession fare, and it is widely acknowledged that public transport operates as a service that will never have its total running costs recouped through fares. David Washington points to the historic context for Adelaide’s falling behind, perhaps even rolling backwards when it comes to public transport infrastructure. From a disability perspective we see other angles to this.
The number of timetable changes that are disproportionately disruptive to many people living with a disability, their families and carers and the system of checking with a service contractor a day ahead to see when an accessible bus will be operating on a particular route, shame our city. Talk of public transport is also a city-centric thing in South Australia, because there is nothing running in the regions.
The Labor Government failed when they did not produce more than a draft transport plan soon after they were elected. They failed when they did not recognise the crisis of capacity in the peak hour bus fleet, and on the whole they just don’t understand that providing cheap, efficient, frequent services is the way to increase patronage and that it is this – and not building bigger roads – that will lead to transport progress in this state. Road building has never reduced traffic congestion, to the contrary it has only ever increased congestion as it encourages more single occupant journeys. Myths, such as ‘new roads reduce congestion’ are nicely debunked here. One wonders who is sitting in the ivory towers of the transport department these days and whether any of them travel on the bus or train.
Adelaide’s tram extension seems to have been the darling of this Government, but yet again they failed to understand the theory of urban transit when they built what they called a “park and ride” facility at Hindmarsh, on the very fringe of the city – a totally car-centric thing to do. A park and ride works best when it is near to where people live, and there is no justification for the tram going to the Entertainment Centre when the Bowden train station is just 150 metres away.
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How could anyone fail to be deeply cynical at this last minute conversion on the ever widening road to election day?
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